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I'm trying to build binding system similar to the one that is used in WPF and I ran into some memory leaking problems, so here comes my question - how is memory managed in WPF property system?

From what I know in WPF values of DependencyProperties are stored in external containers - what I wanna know is how are they collected when DependencyObject dies?

Simplest solution would be to store them is some weak reference dictionary - but here comes the main problem I ran into - when there is a listener on property that needs reference to its (this property) parent it holds it (the parent) alive (when value of weak reference dictionary points somewhere, even indirectly, to key - it can't be collected).

How is it avoided in WPF without the need of using weak references everywhere?

gnat
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zduny
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1 Answers1

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WPF makes extensive use of weak references for this very reason. While it may be a bit of a pain to implement, it is the correct answer here. When discussing the weak reference design pattern, Microsoft writes that:

Implementing the weak event pattern is interesting primarily for control authors. As a control author, you are largely responsible for the behavior and containment of your control and the impact it has on applications in which it is inserted. This includes the control object lifetime behavior, in particular the handling of the described memory leak problem.

Certain scenarios inherently lend themselves to the application of the weak event pattern. One such scenario is data binding. In data binding, it is common for the source object to be completely independent of the listener object, which is a target of a binding. Many aspects of WPF data binding already have the weak event pattern applied in how the events are implemented."

Since you are writing something along these lines, from the sound of it, you should make use of this pattern.

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Michael
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