Garbage Collection

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C

C# Learner

I keep seeing code like this in tutorials:

public void Start()
{
Thread thread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(Callback));
thread.IsBackground = true;
thread.Start();
}

This seems erroneous to me. Surely thread is then subject to garbage
collection, since it has a reference count of 0 after execution leaves
this method.

Am I missing something here?
 
C# Learner said:
I keep seeing code like this in tutorials:

public void Start()
{
Thread thread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(Callback));
thread.IsBackground = true;
thread.Start();
}

This seems erroneous to me. Surely thread is then subject to garbage
collection, since it has a reference count of 0 after execution leaves
this method.

Am I missing something here?
Click to expand...

Yes - a thread which has been started has a reference to itself,
effectively. Otherwise what's keeping even the current thread alive?
 
Hi C# Learner

The CLR Garbage Collector doesn't use reference counting, rather a concept of "GC roots". Roots are references that are not garbage (variables in scope, statics, etc), and
so will not be collected. One of the properties of threads is that they are roots.

Hope that helps
-Chris

--------------------
From: C# Learner <[email protected]>
Subject: Garbage Collection
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 10:58:24 +0000
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I keep seeing code like this in tutorials:

public void Start()
{
Thread thread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(Callback));
thread.IsBackground = true;
thread.Start();
}

This seems erroneous to me. Surely thread is then subject to garbage
collection, since it has a reference count of 0 after execution leaves
this method.

Am I missing something here?
Click to expand...


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The best explanation of GC ever, bar none, can be found in Jeff Richter's
classic "Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming" Microsoft Press.

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