Generic WeakReference

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Introduction

In the .NET Framework, there is no generic implementation of the System.WeakReference class. This means that runtime casting has to be done by the developer which is error prone and repetitive work. I did this simple implementation to rid this problem. Of course, it does not help with the overhead that boxing introduces since it's still stored in an object variable in the base class. Hopefully future releases of the framework will contain a real generic WeakReference.

Using the Code

Just cut the code snippet below and paste it into your project to use it.

    /// <summary>
    /// Represents a weak reference, which references an object while still allowing
    /// that object to be reclaimed by garbage collection.
    /// </summary>
    /// <typeparam name="T">The type of the object that is referenced.</typeparam>
    [Serializable]
    public class WeakReference<T>
        : WeakReference where T : class
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Initializes a new instance of the WeakReference{T} class, referencing
        /// the specified object.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="target">The object to reference.</param>
        public WeakReference(T target)
            : base(target)
        { }
        /// <summary>
        /// Initializes a new instance of the WeakReference{T} class, referencing
        /// the specified object and using the specified resurrection tracking.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="target">An object to track.</param>
        /// <param name="trackResurrection">Indicates when to stop tracking the object. 
        /// If true, the object is tracked
        /// after finalization; if false, the object is only tracked 
        /// until finalization.</param>
        public WeakReference(T target, bool trackResurrection)
            : base(target, trackResurrection)
        { }
        protected WeakReference(SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context)
            : base(info, context)
        { }
        /// <summary>
        /// Gets or sets the object (the target) referenced by the 
        /// current WeakReference{T} object.
        /// </summary>
        public new T Target
        {
            get
            {
                return (T)base.Target;
            }
           set
            {
                base.Target = value;
            }
        }
    }        

History

• 21^st December, 2007: Initial post