Question

I usually write my DataReader code like this:

try
{
    dr = cmd.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior.SingleResult);
    while (dr.Read())
    {
        // Do stuff
    }
}
finally
{
    if (dr != null) { dr.Close(); }
}

Is it safe to replace the try and finally with just a using block around the DataReader‘s creation? The reason I wonder is because in all the Microsoft examples I’ve seen they use a using for the connection but always explicitly call Close() on the DataReader.

Heres’s an example from
Retrieving Data Using a DataReader (ADO.NET):

static void HasRows(SqlConnection connection)
{
    using (connection)
    {
        SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand(
          "SELECT CategoryID, CategoryName FROM Categories;",
          connection);
        connection.Open();

        SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader();

        if (reader.HasRows)
        {
            while (reader.Read())
            {
                Console.WriteLine("{0}\t{1}", reader.GetInt32(0),
                    reader.GetString(1));
            }
        }
        else
        {
            Console.WriteLine("No rows found.");
        }
        reader.Close();
    }
}

Answer 1

Yes. using calls Dispose. Calling Dispose on SqlDataReader closes it.

This is psuedo-code of SqlDataReader gleaned from Reflector:

    public void Dispose()
    {
        this.Close();
    }

    public override void Close()
    {
        if( !IsClosed )
            CloseInternal(true);
    }

    private void CloseInternal(bool closeReader)
    {
        try
        {
            // Do some stuff to close the reader itself
        }
        catch(Exception ex)
        {
            this.Connection.Abort();
            throw;
        }

        if( this.Connection != null && CommandBehavior.CloseConnection == true )
        {
            this.Connection.Close();
        }
    }