This class encapsulates a weak reference to
an object. By default, when you
instantiate a .NET class, you create a strong reference, which
prevents the garbage collector from removing the object and
reclaiming memory. A weak reference, however, does not prevent an
object from being released.
Objects that are weakly referenced can still be kept alive as long as
there is at least one strong reference to them. That means a weak
reference allows you to access an object as long as it is in use by
another part of your application. For example, objects can be stored
in a collection using a weak reference, but not kept alive just
because they are in the collection.
To create a weakly referenced object, pass the name of the object to
the WeakReference constructor. You can use the
IsAlive property to check if the reference is
valid, and the Target property to get a reference
to the actual object. Assigning the Target
property to another variable creates a strong reference.
You can set the TrackResurrection property to
true in the constructor to maintain a
long weak reference, which tracks an object
during (or after) finalization.
public class WeakReference : System.Runtime.Serialization.ISerializable {
// Public Constructors
public WeakReference(object target);
public WeakReference(object target, bool trackResurrection);
// Protected Constructors
protected WeakReference(System.Runtime.Serialization.SerializationInfo info,
System.Runtime.Serialization.StreamingContext context);
// Public Instance Properties
public virtual bool IsAlive{get; }
public virtual object Target{set; get; }
public virtual bool TrackResurrection{get; }
// Public Instance Methods
public virtual void GetObjectData(System.Runtime.Serialization.SerializationInfo info,
System.Runtime.Serialization.StreamingContext context)
// implements ISerializable
// Protected Instance Methods
protected override void Finalize( );
// overrides object
}
