Question

If I create a stream inside of the try block and an exception is raised does the stream automatically get disposed of? For example:

try
{
   Stream stream = response.GetResponseStream();
   //Error Occurs
   stream.Close();
}
catch
{
   //Handle Error
}

If this is not the way to do it can you please suggest an approach?

Answer 1

No, you need to use finally

Stream stream;
try
{
   stream = response.GetResponseStream();
   //Error Occurs
}
catch
{
   //Handle Error
}
finally
{
    if(stream != null)
        stream.Close();
}

Or, wrap your Stream declaration/definition in a using statement, which calls Close() automatically:

try
{
    using(Stream stream = response.GetResponseStream())
    {
        //Error happens
    }
    //stream.Dispose(), which calls stream.Close(), is called by compiler here
}
catch
{
   //Handle Error
}

---

Note that my two examples are not exactly equivalent – in the first, the exception is handled before steam.Close() is called, in the second the exception is handled after.