A String represents an immutable ordered set of characters. The String type is derived from Object, making it a reference type, and therefore, String objects (its array of characters) always live in the heap, never on a thread's stack. The String  type also implements several interface (IComparable/ IComparable<String>, ICloneable, IConvertible, IEnumerable/ IEnumerable<Char>, and IEquatable<String>). The String class is sealed no inheritance allowed and string is an alias for System.String in the .NET Framework.

Once created, a string can never get longer, get shorter, or have any of its characters changed. It allows you  to perform operations on a string without actually changing the string. If you perform a lot of string manipulations, you end up creating a lot of String objects on the heap, which causes more frequent garbage collections, thus hurting your application's performance. To perform a lot of string manipulations efficiently, use the StringBuilder class.

You can concatenate several strings to form a single string by using the C# + (plus) operator: 

String  sObj=”Hi” + “  “ + “Gentleman”; 

In this example all strings are literal strings so C# compiler concatenates them at compile time and end up just one string “Hi Gentleman” in the module's metadata. Using the + (plus)  operator on nonliteral strings causes the concatenation to be performed at run time. To concatenate several strings together at run time, avoid using the + operator as it creates multiple string objects on the garbage-collected heap. Instead, use the System.Text.StringBuilder type.

C# also offers a special way to declare a string in which all characters between quotes are considered part of the string. These special declarations are called verbatim strings and are typically used when specifying the path of a file or directory or when working with regular expressions. 

// Specifying the pathname of an application 
String file = "C:\\Windows\\System32\\pbrush.exe"; 

// Specifying the pathname of an application by using a verbatim string 
String file = @"C:\Windows\System32\pbrush.exe";

The @ symbol before the string tells the compiler that the string is a verbatim string. In effect, this  tells the compiler to treat backslash characters as backslash characters instead of escape characters.

Garbage Collection

    The .NET Framework's garbage collector manages the allocation and release of memory for your application. Each time you use the new operator to create an object, the runtime allocates memory for the object from the managed heap. As long as address space is available in the managed heap, the runtime continues to allocate space for new objects. However, memory is not infinite. Eventually the garbage collector must perform a collection in order to free some memory. The garbage collector's optimizing engine determines the best time to perform a collection, based upon the allocations being made. When the garbage collector performs a collection, it checks for objects in the managed heap that are no longer being used by the application and performs the necessary operations to reclaim their memory.

Automatic Memory Management
     Automatic memory management is one of the servicesthat the common language runtime provides during Managed Execution. The common languageruntime's garbage collector manages the allocation and release of memory for anapplication. For developers, this means that you do not have to write code to performmemory management tasks when you develop managed applications. Automatic memorymanagement can eliminate common problems, such as forgetting to free an object andcausing a memory leak, or attempting to access memory for an object that has alreadybeen freed. This section describes how the garbage collector allocates and releasesmemory. 

• Allocating Memory:-
        When you initialize a new process, the runtime reserves a contiguous region of address space for the process. This reserved address space is called the managed heap. The managed heap maintains a pointer to the address where the next object in the heap will be allocated. Initially, this pointer is set to the managed heap's base address. All reference types are allocated on the managed heap. When an application creates the first reference type, memory is allocated for the type at the base address of the managed heap. When the application creates the next object, the garbage collector allocates memory for it in the address space immediately following the first object. As long as address space is available, the garbage collector continues to allocate space for new objects in this manner. Allocating memory from the managed heap is faster than unmanaged memory allocation. Because the runtime allocates memory for an object by adding a value to a pointer, it is almost as fast as allocating memory from the stack. In addition, because new objects that are allocated consecutively are stored contiguously in the managed heap, an application can access the objects very quickly.

• Releasing Memory:-
        The garbage collector's optimizing engine determines the best time to perform a collection based on the allocations being made. When the garbage collector performs a collection, it releases the memory for objects that are no longer being used by the application. It determines which objects are no longer being used by examining the application's roots. Every application has a set of roots. Each root either refers to an object on the managed heap or is set to null. An application's roots include global and static object pointers, local variables and reference object parameters on a thread's stack, and CPU registers. The garbage collector has access to the list of active roots that the just-in-time (JIT) compiler and the runtime maintain. Using this list, it examines an application's roots, and in the process creates a graph that contains all the objects that are reachable from the roots. 
          Objects that are not in the graph are unreachable from the application's roots. The garbage collector considers unreachable objects garbage and will release the memory allocated for them. During a collection, the garbage collector examines the managed heap, looking for the blocks of address space occupied by unreachable objects. As it discovers each unreachable object, it uses a memory-copying function to compact the reachable objects in memory, freeing up the blocks of address spaces allocated to unreachable objects. Once the memory for the reachable objects has been compacted, the garbage collector makes the necessary pointer corrections so that the application's roots point to the objects in their new locations. It also positions the managed heap's pointer after the last reachable object. Note that memory is compacted only if a collection discovers a significant number of unreachable objects. If all the objects in the managed heap survive a collection, then there is no need for memory compaction. To improve performance, the runtime allocates memory for large objects in a separate heap. The garbage collector automatically releases the memory for large objects. However, to avoid moving large objects in memory, this memory is not compacted.

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