Question

Is the Close() method required for the System.Diagnostics.Process class?

EDIT: The Process is monitoring a console application which terminates almost instantly…

Billy3

Answer 1

Yes.

Note, however, that Close simply has to do with releasing resources that are local to your application. It does not attempt to terminate the process. To do that, you’d have to call either CloseMainWindow() (for GUI applications) or Kill() (for any application).

The Process class implements IDisposable, which, strictly speaking, obligates you to calling Dispose once you’re finished with the object. However, for many classes like this, the public-facing version of the Dispose method is Close.

The easiest (and most reliable) way of dealing with such objects is with a using block. This will automatically call Dispose on the variable as soon as the end of the block is reached. It also protects you from an exception preventing you from disposing of the object.

For example:

using(System.Diagnostics.Process process = new System.Diagnostics.Process())
{
    // set your properties and launch it
    // wait for it to exit if you want to, or just let it continue to run
}

This is functionally equivalent to doing this:

System.Diagnostics.Process process = new System.Diagnostics.Process();

try
{
    // set your properties and launch it
    // wait for it to exit if you want to, or just let it continue to run
}
finally
{
    process.Close();
}

(Note that I said functionally equivalent, not semantically equivalent; in reality, the using block maintains its own handle to the object as an IDisposable, then calls Dispose, not Close. That, however, is not relevant to this question.)