Question

I was reading the MSDN article about how to implement IDisposable and I am uncertain about the difference between managed and native resources cited in the article.

I have a class that must dispose 2 of its fields when it is disposed. Should I treat them as Managed (dispose only when disposing = true) or Native resources?

Answer 1

A managed resource is another managed type, which implements IDisposable. You need to call Dispose() on any other IDisposable type you use. Native resources are anything outside the managed world such as native Windows handles etc.

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EDIT: Answer to question in comment (too long for comment)

No that is just a managed type. A correctly constructed type, which doesn’t implement IDisposable will be handled by the garbage collector and you don’t have to do anything else. If your type uses a native resource directly (e.g. by calling Win32 libraries), you must implement IDisposable on your type and dispose of the resource(s) in the Dispose method. If your type uses a native resource encapsulated by another type which implements IDisposable, you must call Dispose() on instances of this type in the Dispose method of your type.