#926 – How Memory Is Allocated for Objects on the Managed Heap

When your applications starts up, the Garbage Collector (GC) allocates some virtual memory to use as a managed heap.  It creates a pointer to the next available free space in the managed heap, which defaults to point to the beginning of the (empty) heap.

When you use the new operator to create a new reference-typed object, the Garbage Collector allocates space on the managed heap for your object as follows:

• It uses the pointer to the next available space on the heap to determine where to store your object
• It advances the next available free space pointer, based on the size of your object
• It zeroes out memory for the new object
• It passes back a pointer to the new object, which is then stored in the reference-typed variable that refers to your object
• The object’s constructor executes, to initialize data members within the object