C# in a Nutshell, Second Edition

Name

GCHandle

Synopsis

This class is used when you need to pass a managed object to unmanaged code. To use this class, pass an instance of a .NET-managed type to the Alloc( ) method. The single-argument form of Alloc( ) creates the GCHandle with GCHandleType.Normal, which ensures that the object will not be freed by the garbage collector. (This means that some kind of user code must also call the Free( ) method in order to release the object.) Managed code can use the Target property to access the underlying object.

public struct GCHandle {
// Public Instance Properties
   public bool IsAllocated{get; }
   public object Target{set; get; }
// Public Static Methods
   public static GCHandle Alloc(object value);
   public static GCHandle Alloc(object value, GCHandleType type);
   public static explicit operator GCHandle(IntPtr value);
   public static explicit operator IntPtr(GCHandle value);
// Public Instance Methods
   public IntPtr AddrOfPinnedObject( );
   public void Free( );
}

Hierarchy

System.Object → System.ValueType → GCHandle