Question

I have a class hierarchy, each member of which may create IDisposable objects.

I added a List<IDisposable> property to the base class in this hierarchy, to which I add any disposable objects on creation. The root Dispose method iterates through this list and calls Dispose for each item in its list and clears the list. In the application, I explicitly call the top object’s Dispose method, causing disposal to cascade through the hierarchy.

This works, but is there a better way? Am I unwittingly duplicating some functionality already present in the framework?

(Note – the objects in question have a lifetime that precludes just wrapping them in a using block or disposing of them in the same methodwhere they are created.)

Edit

Just for clarification – I’m only keeping those objects around that need to be kept. Some are disposed of in the same method where they are created, but many are used in such a way that this isn’t possible.

Answer 1

So long as you implement the disposable pattern correctly (as described here), this method is fine.

As far as I know, only using statements have special support for IDisposable – there isn’t anything in the framework that replicates what you are doing.