.NET Framework Garbage Collection Multiple dead objects
Example
What if two (or several) otherwise dead objects reference one another? This is shown in the example below, supposing that OtherObject is a public property of FinalizableObject:
var obj1 = new FinalizableObject1();
var obj2 = new FinalizableObject2();
obj1.OtherObject = obj2;
obj2.OtherObject = obj1;
obj1 = null; // Program no longer references Finalizable1 instance
obj2 = null; // Program no longer references Finalizable2 instance
// But the two objects still reference each other
GC.Collect();
This produces the following output:
<namespace>.FinalizedObject1 initialized
<namespace>.FinalizedObject2 initialized
<namespace>.FinalizedObject1 finalized
<namespace>.FinalizedObject2 finalized
The two objects are finalized and freed from the managed heap despite referencing each other (because no other reference exists to any of them from an actually live object).
