Allows an Object to attempt to free resources and perform other cleanup operations before the Object is reclaimed by garbage collection.

[C#] In C#, finalizers are expressed using destructor syntax.

[C++] In C++, finalizers are expressed using destructor syntax.

[Visual Basic]
Overrides Protected Sub Finalize()
[C#]
~Object();
[C++]
~Object();
[JScript]
protected override function Finalize();

Remarks

Finalize is protected and, therefore, is accessible only through this class or a derived class.

This method is automatically called after an object becomes inaccessible, unless the object has been exempted from finalization by a call to SuppressFinalize. During shutdown of an application domain, Finalize is automatically called on objects that are not exempt from finalization, even those that are still accessible. Finalize is automatically called only once on a given instance, unless the object is re-registered using a mechanism such as ReRegisterForFinalize and GC.SuppressFinalize has not been subsequently called.

Every implementation of Finalize in a derived type must call its base type's implementation of Finalize. This is the only case in which application code is allowed to call Finalize.

Finalize operations have the following limitations:

• The exact time when the finalizer executes during garbage collection is undefined. Resources are not guaranteed to be released at any specific time, unless calling a Close method or a Dispose method.
• The finalizers of two objects are not guaranteed to run in any specific order, even if one object refers to the other. That is, if Object A has a reference to Object B and both have finalizers, Object B might have already finalized when the finalizer of Object A starts.
• The thread on which the finalizer is run is unspecified.

The Finalize method might not run to completion or might not run at all in the following exceptional circumstances:

• Another finalizer blocks indefinitely (goes into an infinite loop, tries to obtain a lock it can never obtain and so on). Because the runtime attempts to run finalizers to completion, other finalizers might not be called if a finalizer blocks indefinitely.
• The process terminates without giving the runtime a chance to clean up. In this case, the runtime's first notification of process termination is a DLL_PROCESS_DETACH notification.

The runtime continues to Finalize objects during shutdown only while the number of finalizable objects continues to decrease.

If Finalize or an override of Finalize throws an exception, the runtime ignores the exception, terminates that Finalize method, and continues the finalization process.

Notes to Implementers:  

Object.Finalize does nothing by default. It must be overridden by a derived class only if necessary, because reclamation during garbage collection tends to take much longer if a Finalize operation must be run.

If an Object holds references to any resources, Finalize must be overridden by a derived class in order to free these resources before the Object is discarded during garbage collection.

A type must implement Finalize when it uses unmanaged resources such as file handles or database connections that must be released when the managed object that uses them is reclaimed. See the IDisposable interface for a complementary and more controllable means of disposing resources.

Finalize can take any action, including resurrecting an object (that is, making the object accessible again) after it has been cleaned up during garbage collection. However, the object can only be resurrected once; Finalize cannot be called on resurrected objects during garbage collection.

[C#] Destructors are the C# mechanism for performing cleanup operations. Destructors provide appropriate safeguards, such as automatically calling the base type's destructor. In C# code, Object.Finalize cannot be called or overridden.

Requirements

Platforms: Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 2000, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, Windows Server 2003 family, .NET Compact Framework - Windows CE .NET, Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) Standard

See Also

Object Class | Object Members | System Namespace | GC | WeakReference