# GC Handles

### Synopsys

@API_IDX@

GC handles are wrappers that are used to keep references to managed objects in the unmanaged space and preventing the object from being disposed.

These are the C equivalents of the `System.GCHandle` structure.

There are two kinds of GCHandles that can be created:

- Handles to objects (use `mono_gchandle_new`).
- Weak handles to objects (use `mono_gchandle_new_weakref`). Weak handles can have the objects reclaimed by the garbage collector.

To retrieve the target address of an object pointed to by a `GCHandle` you should use `mono_gchandle_get_target`.

For example, consider the following C code:

static MonoObject* o = NULL;

The object in `o' will *NOT* be scanned.

If you need to store an object in a C variable and prevent it from being collected, you need to acquire a GC handle for it.

guint32 handle = mono_gchandle_new (my_object, TRUE);

TRUE means the object will be pinned, so it won't move in memory when we'll use a moving GC. You can access the MonoObject* referenced by a handle with:

MonoObject* obj = mono_gchandle_get_target (handle);

When you don't need the handle anymore you need to call:

mono_gchandle_free (handle);

Note that if you assign a new object to the C var, you need to get a new handle, it's not enough to store a new object in the C var.

So code that looked like this:

static MonoObject* obj = NULL; ... obj = mono_object_new (...); // use obj ... // when done to allow the GC to collect obj obj = NULL;

should now be changed to:

static guint32 o_handle; ... MonoObject *obj = mono_object_new (...); o_handle = mono_gchandle_new (obj, TRUE); // use o or mono_gchandle_get_target (o_handle) ... // when done to allow the GC to collect obj mono_gchandle_free (o_handle);

#### mono_gchandle_new

#### mono_gchandle_new_weakref

#### mono_gchandle_get_target

#### mono_gchandle_free