Question

I’ve the following code

using(MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
{
     //code
     return 0;
}

The dispose() method is called at the end of using statement braces } right? Since I return before the end of the using statement, will the MemoryStream object be disposed properly? What happens here?

Answer 1

Yes, Dispose will be called. It’s called as soon as the execution leaves the scope of the using block, regardless of what means it took to leave the block, be it the end of execution of the block, a return statement, or an exception.

As @Noldorin correctly points out, using a using block in code gets compiled into try/finally, with Dispose being called in the finally block. For example the following code:

using(MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
{
     //code
     return 0;
}

effectively becomes:

MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
try
{
    // code
    return 0;
}
finally
{
    ms.Dispose();
}

So, because finally is guaranteed to execute after the try block has finished execution, regardless of its execution path, Dispose is guaranteed to be called, no matter what.

For more information, see this MSDN article.

Addendum:
Just a little caveat to add: because Dispose is guaranteed to be called, it’s almost always a good idea to ensure that Dispose never throws an exception when you implement IDisposable. Unfortunately, there are some classes in the core library that do throw in certain circumstances when Dispose is called — I’m looking at you, WCF Service Reference / Client Proxy! — and when that happens it can be very difficult to track down the original exception if Dispose was called during an exception stack unwind, since the original exception gets swallowed in favor of the new exception generated by the Dispose call. It can be maddeningly frustrating. Or is that frustratingly maddening? One of the two. Maybe both.