new keyword wasting memory? 1

[ajikoe]

hallo,

If I have a class for example :

Class A{
int i;
public A(int myi){
i = myi;
}
}

and in my main class I can write:
A a1 = new A(1);//assigning a1.i = 1
a1 = new A(2); //assigning a1.i = 2

the question :
If I use the above method to change the value of i, is it wasting the computer memory?

Sincerely Yours,
Pujo Aji

 

[chiph]

It's definitely slower, and will certainly impact memory usage in the short term.

What will happen is that the old A1 will be disposed (put on the list for the garbage collector to free it), a new memory block will be reserved, the constructor will be called, and the result will be assigned to variable a1.

Since a1 is a local variable, it lives in memory generation 0, and so this (old) block of memory will be among the first blocks freed & compacted the next time the garbage collector runs. As a result, your memory usage will be higher until a GC runs. This probably isn't a big deal on a desktop PC, but has significant impact to a PocketPC running the compact framework.

There may be valid design reasons why you'd do it this way (allocating a new instance), but most of the time if you want to change the value of i, you'd just provide a property to do it.

Chip H.


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