Question

I was wondering if setting an object to null will clean up any eventhandlers that are attached to the objects events…

e.g.

Button button = new Button();
button.Click += new EventHandler(Button_Click);
button = null;

button = new Button();
button.Click += new EventHandler(Button_Click);
button = null;

etc…

Will this cause a memory leak?

Answer 1

If there are no other references to button anywhere, then there is no need to remove the event handler here to avoid a memory leak. Event handlers are one-way references, so removing them is only needed when the object with events is long-lived, and you want to avoid the handlers (i.e. objects with handler methods) from living longer than they should. In your example, this isn’t the case.