Kuidas käitub automaatne mälu haldamise mehhanism, kui objekt sisaldab viidet iseendale?

In C#, the automatic memory management mechanism (Garbage Collector, GC) is based on counting the reachability of objects from root references.

If an object contains a reference to itself (self-reference), this does not prevent the garbage collector from freeing the memory if there are no external references to that object. GC analyzes the object graph, starting from the root references, and marks all reachable objects. Objects that are only reachable through cyclic references (including self-references), but not from the roots, are considered unreachable and are collected.

Therefore, self-reference does not prevent the collection of the object if it is not used in the program.

Example:

class Node {
    public Node SelfReference;
}

var node = new Node();
node.SelfReference = node;

// If after this, the node is no longer used and there are no other references to it,
// GC will free the memory, despite the self-reference.