What is the best way to find a process's memory allocations in terms of C# objects

Question

I have written various C# console based applications, some of them long running some not, which can over time have a large memory foot print. When looking at the windows perofrmance monitor via the task manager, the same question keeps cropping up in my mind; how do I get a break down of the number objects by type that are contributing to this footprint; and which of those are f-reachable and those which aren't and hence can be collected. On numerous occasions I've performed a code inspection to ensure that I am not unnecessarily holding on objects longer than required and disposing of objects with the using construct. I have also recently looked at employing the CG.Collect method when I have released a large number of objects (for example held in a collection which has just been cleared). However, I am not so sure that this made that much difference, so I threw that code away. I am guessing that there are tools in sysinternals suite than can help to resolve these memory type quiestions but I am not sure which and how to use them. The alternative would be to pay for a third party profiling tool such as JetBrains dotTrace; but I need to make sure that I've explored the free options first before going cap in hand to my manager.

Answer 1

There is the CLR Profiler that lets you review various object graphs (I've never used it):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=86ce6052-d7f4-4aeb-9b7a-94635beebdda&displaylang=en

Of course, ANTS Profiler (free trial) is an often recommended profiler. You shouldn't need to manually garbage collect, the GC is a very intelligently built solution that will likely be more optimal than any manual calls you do. A better approach is to be minimalist with the number of objects you keep in memory - and be rid of memory-heavy objects as soon as possible if memory is priority.