Question

Say I have a Stream produced via TcpClient.GetStream(). If I stream.Dispose(), is it necessary to dispose of the TcpClient that created the Stream?

Answer 1

Looking at the implementations of TcpClient.GetStream and TcpClient.Dispose in ILSpy, I agree that you should not have a resource leak if you call Dispose() on the stream but not on the client.

However, I am not convinced it is a good idea anyway.

I’d ask why you want to avoid calling Dispose() on the instance of TcpClient. The contract implied by the fact that TcpClient implements IDisposable is that Dispose() should be called when an instance is no longer required.

If you break this contract:

• Is it going to be confusing to future maintainers of your code?
• What if the implementation of TcpClient changes in future versions?