Question

I am developing a MySQL Web App using ASP.net and I have heard that a using directive should be used for the mysql connection to ensure that the connection is always closed should something go wrong as their is no guarantee that the database will close from inside finally statement if a catch has occured (depending on the exception).

I am trying to create a class that opens the MySQL Connection so I haven’t got to repeat the same code each time I need to access the database.

I have seen that it is something like

using (call class to open connection)
{
     MySQL Stuff Here
}

I have seen that the class that is being called to open the connection needs to be an IDISOSABLe class but I am not sure how I can implement this.
However, I cannot find any information on how this can be done. Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

The typical way to implement the IDisposable interface is by following the pattern laid out in the example in the documentation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.idisposable.aspx

Basically, your class should/would look like this:

public sealed class YourClass : IDisposable
{
    private MySqlConnection _Connection;
    private bool _IsDisposed;

    public YourClass()
    {
        _Connection = new MySqlConnection();
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        if (!_IsDisposed)
        {
            _Connection.Dispose(); // or Close
            _IsDisposed = false;
        }
    }
}

There are numerous variants of this pattern, depending on whether you intend for others to inherit from your class, and whether you have any unmanaged resources you need to close (like file handles), but for normal use, the above is enough.