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Mastering C# for .NET Developers

IDisposable Interface

Explore the IDisposable interface to understand how to properly release unmanaged resources in C#. Learn to implement Dispose methods, use finalizers, and apply the standard Dispose pattern for robust memory management and resource cleanup.

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The goal of the IDisposable interface is to provide a uniform way to work with objects that interact with unmanaged resources, such as files, database connections, and network streams. This interface declares a single method, Dispose(), where we must place the logic to release these resources.

Here is an implementation of a class that releases resources manually:

C# 14.0
namespace GarbageCollector;
// Implement the IDisposable interface
public class Course : IDisposable
{
    public string Title { get; set; }
    ~Course()
    {
        Console.WriteLine($"Course object with title {Title} claimed by the garbage collector.");
    }
    // We implement this method
    public void Dispose()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Releasing unmanaged resources...");
    }
}

  • Line 1: We use a file-scoped namespace to reduce indentation.

  • Line 4: We implement the IDisposable interface.

  • Lines 8–11: We define a finalizer as a fallback for the garbage collector.

  • Lines 14–17: ...