Making a field eligible for GC

recently i've been working on a small game engine and i'm trying to call the GC to free my entities after i unload a world (i'm trying to trigger finalizers which will then make opengl resources eligible for disposal and then reclaimed through a seperate method)

i was expecting for when i set my field

_entities

_entities

null

null

that it would become eligible for GC but the following code always shows the list is alive

// _entities is a List<T>
        WeakReference listRef = new(_entities); 
        _entities = null!;

        GC.Collect();
        GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();

        Console.WriteLine($"list is alive? {listRef.IsAlive}");

// _entities is a List<T>
        WeakReference listRef = new(_entities); 
        _entities = null!;

        GC.Collect();
        GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();

        Console.WriteLine($"list is alive? {listRef.IsAlive}");

how can i make

_entities

_entities

eligible to be GCed? (it's a private variable which is not ever passed to outside of the class)

C#•3y ago•

5 replies

kettlemug

Making a field eligible for GC

_entities

_entities

null

null

that it would become eligible for GC but the following code always shows the list is alive

// _entities is a List<T>
        WeakReference listRef = new(_entities); 
        _entities = null!;

        GC.Collect();
        GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();

        Console.WriteLine($"list is alive? {listRef.IsAlive}");

// _entities is a List<T>
        WeakReference listRef = new(_entities); 
        _entities = null!;

        GC.Collect();
        GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();

        Console.WriteLine($"list is alive? {listRef.IsAlive}");

how can i make

_entities

_entities

eligible to be GCed? (it's a private variable which is not ever passed to outside of the class)

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