A Question about the .NET garbage collector when cyclic references exist

Question

I'm aware that the .net garbage collector detects cyclic references but I was wondering whether cyclic references may cause objects to stay longer than necessary.

I have a cyclic reference in my ASP.NET app (an intended one for performance related reasons), can I get away with that?

Regards

Answer 1

It doesn't take the CLR any longer to remove a cyclic reference than a non-cyclic reference. The CLR uses a combination of techniques to garbage collect. The quick version though is it starts with all rooted objects (objects on the stack, or held with a strong GC handle). Any object that is reachable from these objects is alive. Anything else will be collected. A cyclic reference won't affect the results of this algorithm other than the CLR has to make sure to check for them and not walk in circles