I'm wondering if a tool exists that will integrate with the VS 2005
debugger, such that when I set a breakpoint I can inspect a reference and
see how many other references exist to that object.  I'm sure there is an
internal reference count somewhere but have no idea how to inspect it.

Not feasible in any garbage collected system.  Note I didn't say not
possible.  Its simply that the overhead to do this would be so sever that
the system performance would noticibly suffer.

In VB 6 and COM, the system increments a counter in the object header every
time a reference is added to the object.  Then the counter is decremented
whenever a reference is removed.  When this counter reaches zero, the object
is removed, decrementing references in any objects it points to.

In .NET the system keeps track of memory roots.  These are classically the
program stack and data segment.  In .NET, there are additional roots such as
a stack and data segment for each thread in a program as well as other roots
that are maintained by the garbage collector itself.  When the GC runs, it
starts with each root and sets a flag that uniquley identifies this GC run.
Any objects that aren't identified on this run are eligible for removal from
memory.  After the mark pass, memory is compacted by the GC so that
available memory is consolidated at the end of the heap.  Microsoft has a
rather extensive technet article on the .NET garbage collector, but this is
the fundamental description of all modern garbage collection systems.  Thus,
there is no way to track the number of references to an object.  All the
system needs is one reference and it stops looking.

Mike Ober.

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