[Mono-list] How do I force a garbage collection / free a heap

[Michael Hutchinson]

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 7:04 PM, Mike Christensen <mike at kitchenpc.com> wrote:
> Hi all -
>
> I have a program that generates some results, but in order to do so it
> must load a whole lotta stuff into memory for calculations.  When this
> is done, I only need the results and not the data in memory.  This
> data might be several hundred megs on the heap or more.
>
> When I'm done, I want to "free" this data and not have it sit around
> and slow down stuff.  Is there a way to force a GC cycle or just say
> "delete these objects"?  Is there a better design for this sort of
> thing (like can I create my own heap and just release the whole thing
> at once?)  Also, I'm aware that GC will freeze all threads while it
> works, which is okay since I only do this when the application starts
> and I don't mind if the start-up costs are slow (since it's a web
> site)..
>
> Any pointers would be great!

You can use GC.Collect () to force a collection. Generally it's
advised not to call GC.Collect, because it's best to let the garbage
collector handle its scheduling, but it sounds like your use case is
okay.

-- 
Michael Hutchinson
http://mjhutchinson.com