Question

In C# when reassigning a disposable object variable with a new object, how does it work in the memory? Will the memory space occupied by the old object simply be overwritten by the new object? Or do I still have to call Dispose() to release the resources it uses?

DisposableThing thing;

thing = new DisposableThing();
//....do stuff
//thing.Dispose();
thing = new DisposableThing();

Answer 1

It works the same as any other assignment: = does not care about IDisposable or do any magic.

The object initially assigned to the variable will have to have Dispose invoked manually (or better yet, with using) as required. However, it may not always be correct to call Dispose at this point: who owns the object and controls the lifetime?

Will the memory space occupied by the old object simply be overwritten by the new object?

Does not apply. Variables “name” objects. An object is itself and a variable is a variable – not the object or “location in memory”. (See Eric Lippert’s comment bellow: the preceding is a high-level view of variables while Eric’s comment reflects variables more precisely in C# implementation, spirit, and terminology.)

Variables only affect object lifetimes insomuch as they can* keep an object from being reclaimed (and thus prevent the finalizer from [possibly eventually] running). However, variables do not control the objects semantic-lifetime — an object may be Disposed even when not reclaimable — or eliminate the need to invoke Dispose as required.

Happy coding.

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When dealing with disposable objects that extend beyond simple scopes — the objects may be assigned to many different variables during their lifetime! — I find it best to define who “takes control” which I annotate in the documentation. If the object lifetime is nicely limited to a scope then using works well.

*A local variable itself is not necessarily sufficient to keep an object strongly reachable as it is possible that the variable/assignment is aggressively optimized out if not used later from the same scope. This may plague objects like timers.