WPF Memory Leak (DataTemple)

In WPF programming, there is a well-known memory leak which occurs when you use a DataTemplate to display tabs in Tabcontrol.  

If in a tab control you are creating tabs dynamically and also generating contents of those tabs using datatemplate binding as show below

    <DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type ViewModels:SomeViewModel}" >

                <views:SomeView  />

    </DataTemplate>

Then, you are injecting a potential memory leak in your application. Because whenever your tab is highlighted WPF runtime creates a new instance if “SomeView” class and uses it.

As of now only workaround for this problem is to use a ViewFactory which will supply your views. This ViewFactory will have a static object which will create only one instance of “SomeView” class and use it through application lifetime.

So, your changed code would look like

    <DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type ViewModels:SomeViewModel}" >

        <ContentPresenter Content="{x:Static local:ViewsFactory.SomeViewInstance}" />

    </DataTemplate>

And implementation of your ViewFactory class would be something like

 public static class ViewsFactory

    {

        #region SomeViewInstance

        private static SomeView _SomeViewInstance = null;

        /// <summary>

        /// Gets or sets the  SomeViewInstance  property. 

        /// </summary>

        public static SomeView SomeViewInstance

        {

            get

            {

                if (_SomeViewInstance == null)

                {

                    _SomeViewInstance = new SomeView();

                }

                return _SomeViewInstance;

            }

        }

        #endregion

    }

Hope it helps!!!