In .NET, under which circumstances should I use GC.SuppressFinalize()?
What advantage(s) does using this method give me?
320
votes
I have seen a few questions about finalizers and IDisposable, stackoverflow should also have something about GC.SupressFinalize and weak references
– Sam Saffron
I don't think weak references do much of anything regarding finalizers - maybe you should post a more direct question about them.
– Michael Burr
Yerp I was meaning to post a separate question about weak refs, all of this can tie together when you build object pools. Also I should ask a question about object revival ala ReRegisterForFinalize
– Sam Saffron
5 Answers
331
votes
SuppressFinalize should only be called by a class that has a finalizer. It's informing the Garbage Collector (GC) that this object was cleaned up fully.
The recommended IDisposable pattern when you have a finalizer is:
public class MyClass : IDisposable
{
private bool disposed = false;
protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if (!disposed)
{
if (disposing)
{
// called via myClass.Dispose().
// OK to use any private object references
}
// Release unmanaged resources.
// Set large fields to null.
disposed = true;
}
}
public void Dispose() // Implement IDisposable
{
Dispose(true);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
}
~MyClass() // the finalizer
{
Dispose(false);
}
}
Normally, the CLR keeps tabs on objects with a finalizer when they are created (making them more expensive to create). SuppressFinalize tells the GC that the object was cleaned up properly and doesn't need to go onto the finalizer queue. It looks like a C++ destructor, but doesn't act anything like one.
The SuppressFinalize optimization is not trivial, as your objects can live a long time waiting on the finalizer queue. Don't be tempted to call SuppressFinalize on other objects mind you. That's a serious defect waiting to happen.
Design guidelines inform us that a finalizer isn't necessary if your object implements IDisposable, but if you have a finalizer you should implement IDisposable to allow deterministic cleanup of your class.
Most of the time you should be able to get away with IDisposable to clean up resources. You should only need a finalizer when your object holds onto unmanaged resources and you need to guarantee those resources are cleaned up.
Note: Sometimes coders will add a finalizer to debug builds of their own IDisposable classes in order to test that code has disposed their IDisposable object properly.
public void Dispose() // Implement IDisposable
{
Dispose(true);
#if DEBUG
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
#endif
}
#if DEBUG
~MyClass() // the finalizer
{
Dispose(false);
}
#endif
42
votes
SupressFinalize tells the system that whatever work would have been done in the finalizer has already been done, so the finalizer doesn't need to be called. From the .NET docs:
Objects that implement the IDisposable interface can call this method from the IDisposable.Dispose method to prevent the garbage collector from calling Object.Finalize on an object that does not require it.
In general, most any Dispose() method should be able to call GC.SupressFinalize(), because it should clean up everything that would be cleaned up in the finalizer.
SupressFinalize is just something that provides an optimization that allows the system to not bother queuing the object to the finalizer thread. A properly written Dispose()/finalizer should work properly with or without a call to GC.SupressFinalize().
2
votes
1
votes
If a class, or anything derived from it, might hold the last live reference to an object with a finalizer, then either GC.SuppressFinalize(this) or GC.KeepAlive(this) should be called on the object after any operation that might be adversely affected by that finalizer, thus ensuring that the finalizer won't run until after that operation is complete.
The cost of GC.KeepAlive() and GC.SuppressFinalize(this) are essentially the same in any class that doesn't have a finalizer, and classes that do have finalizers should generally call GC.SuppressFinalize(this), so using the latter function as the last step of Dispose() may not always be necessary, but it won't be wrong.
