When is it acceptable to call GC.Collect?

Question

The general advise is that you should not call GC.Collect from your code, but what are the exceptions to this rule?

I can only think of a few very speci

Answer 1

You can call GC.Collect() when you know something about the nature of the app the garbage collector doesn't. It's tempting to think that, as the author, this is very likely. However, the truth is the GC amounts to a pretty well-written and tested expert system, and it's rare you'll know something about the low level code paths it doesn't.

The best example I can think of where you might have some extra information is a app that cycles between idle periods and very busy periods. You want the best performance possible for the busy periods and therefore want to use the idle time to do some clean up.

However, most of the time the GC is smart enough to do this anyway.