Does WeakReference have redundant properties?

Question

WeakReference implementation in .NET has an IsAlive Property.

1) Are there any performance/behavior differences between using the IsAlive property or testing whether the Target property is not null?

2) IsAlive is a redundant property?

Thanks.

Answer 1

1) No. Internally, IsAlive is doing almost exactly the same logic as checking target, and seeing if it's null.

2) Somewhat, since checking whether ref.Target != null is pretty much equivelent to ref.IsAlive. However, IsAlive is more expressive, and potentially easier to understand when maintaining the code.

Answer 2

Looking at the source code, there is no difference in behavior between them. obj.IsAlive is simply more convenient and readable then obj.Target != null.