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IDisposable Interface

Explore the IDisposable interface to manage unmanaged resources in C#. Understand how to implement Dispose methods safely, combine destructors with IDisposable, and prevent resource leaks using recommended patterns.

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Usage

The goal of the IDisposable interface is to provide a uniform way to work with objects that interact with unmanaged resources (like files, database connections, and so on). The IDisposable interface declares a single Dispose() method, in which unmanaged resources must be released:

C#
using System;
namespace GarbageCollector
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // Suppose we create an object that uses unmanaged resources
            var course = new Course() { Title = ".NET Fundamentals" };
            // After we are done using it, we should make sure that
            // unmanaged resources are released:
            course.Dispose();
        }
    }
}

For demonstration purposes, our Dispose() implementation only holds one Console.WriteLine() statement. In real apps, the Dispose() method must contain logic that safely clears the resources used by the object (open file, database connection).

In the example above, We call our Course object’s Dispose() method after we use it… While this is a viable approach in our example, ...