how to avoid memory leak in c#.net

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.NET3.5

Hi
I have written a windows service using c#.net that will keep running for days together
I try to access thousands of files in a folder using below code:

string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(folder, "*.*" );

folder will have 20,000 zipped files or more.This part of code memory goes up to 5000k everytime.

To avoid the memory from going up,what would be the solution to access the folder without actually loading all files into memory.

Thanks

Posted 3-Mar-14 17:12pm

DepiyaReddy

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BillWoodruff 3-Mar-14 23:27pm

I think we need more detail about what you actually do when you access the folder. Using Directory.GetFiles is just going to return an array of string; the question is: what are you doing with that array once you have it ?

Are you disposing the array after you have used it ?

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-03T17:22:00

Review your architecture. This is the general rule for the memory leaks in .NET. Random leaks are much less likely, most of the leaks are due to wrong design/architecture. Please see my past answers:
Best way to get rid of a public static List Causing an Out of Memory[^],
Memory management in MDI forms[^],
Memory leak in WPF DataBinding[^],
deferring varirable inside the loop can cuase memory leak?[^],
Garbage collectotion takes care of all the memory management[^].

For further ideas, I would need to know what are you going to do with 20,000 files. I cannot believe anyone need to use them at the same time, or even see them. Hence, you need some kind of virtualization. For example, with UI you may want to use paging, searching for files and loading file names only when the next portion is required. However, to me, the whole idea to have all these files look quite questionable. Without knowing your purpose, I cannot suggest you any alternative but almost sure they do exist.

—SA