Question

I am running some code in a while loop to ensure a program is always running. If the program isn’t running it starts it, if the program isn’t there it copies it from a backup and then starts it, nothing fancy:

while (true)
{
    Process backup = new Process();
    ProcessStartInfo check = new ProcessStartInfo(file);
    if (Process.GetProcessesByName(file).Length == 0)
    {
        if(File.Exists(file))
        {
            backup.StartInfo = check;
            backup.Start();
        }
        else if (!File.Exists(file))
        {
            File.Copy(backupFile, file);
            Thread.Sleep(250);
            backup.StartInfo = check;
            backup.Start();
        }
    }
    backup.Close();
    Thread.Sleep(2000);
}

The problem is after each cycle the ram usage goes up by about 100KB which isn’t a lot I know but if this is running for an hour or so it’s going to cause big problems.

I have tried pausing it and using .Close() on the process but no joy. Any ideas are much appreciated.

Answer 1

1. Put these lines inside the if statement so they are not executed unless the process is not running:

   Process backup = new Process();
   ProcessStartInfo check = new ProcessStartInfo(file);
   

2. Since Process implements IDisposable, you can wrap it in a using statement, as Oded suggested.

3. You do not have an actual memory leak. When the garbage collector runs, the memory will be reclaimed. If the temporary memory usage is a problem, you could force the GC to run, but I think once you do #1 you will not have a problem with the temporary memory usage either.