GCHandle.Target Property

Definition

Gets or sets the object this handle represents.

C#
public object Target { [System.Security.SecurityCritical] get; [System.Security.SecurityCritical] set; }
C#
public object? Target { get; set; }
C#
public object Target { get; set; }

Property Value

The object this handle represents.

Attributes

Exceptions

The handle was freed, or never initialized.

Examples

The following example shows an App class that creates a handle to a managed object using the GCHandle.Alloc method, which prevents the managed object from being collected. A call to the EnumWindows method passes a delegate and a managed object (both declared as managed types, but not shown), and casts the handle to an IntPtr. The unmanaged function passes the type back to the caller as a parameter of the callback function.

C#
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

public delegate bool CallBack(int handle, IntPtr param);

internal static class NativeMethods
{
    // passing managed object as LPARAM
    // BOOL EnumWindows(WNDENUMPROC lpEnumFunc, LPARAM lParam);

    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    internal static extern bool EnumWindows(CallBack cb, IntPtr param);
}

public class App
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        Run();
    }

    public static void Run()
    {
        TextWriter tw = Console.Out;
        GCHandle gch = GCHandle.Alloc(tw);

        CallBack cewp = new CallBack(CaptureEnumWindowsProc);

        // platform invoke will prevent delegate to be garbage collected
        // before call ends

        NativeMethods.EnumWindows(cewp, GCHandle.ToIntPtr(gch));
        gch.Free();
    }

    private static bool CaptureEnumWindowsProc(int handle, IntPtr param)
    {
        GCHandle gch = GCHandle.FromIntPtr(param);
        TextWriter tw = (TextWriter)gch.Target;
        tw.WriteLine(handle);
        return true;
    }
}

Applies to

Product Versions
.NET Core 1.0, Core 1.1, Core 2.0, Core 2.1, Core 2.2, Core 3.0, Core 3.1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
.NET Framework 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 4.5.1, 4.5.2, 4.6, 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7.1, 4.7.2, 4.8, 4.8.1
.NET Standard 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1
UWP 10.0

See also