Question

Should I still call Dispose() on my socket after closing it?

For example:

mySocket.Shutdown(SocketShutdown.Both);
mySocket.Close();
mySocket.Dispose(); // Redundant?

I was wondering because the MSDN documentation says the following:

Closes the Socket connection and releases all associated resources.

Answer 1

Calling Close internally calls Dispose so you don’t need to call both. From .NET Reflector:

public void Close()
{
    if (s_LoggingEnabled)
    {
        Logging.Enter(Logging.Sockets, this, "Close", (string) null);
    }
    ((IDisposable)this).Dispose();
    if (s_LoggingEnabled)
    {
        Logging.Exit(Logging.Sockets, this, "Close", (string) null);
    }
}

If possible you should use the using pattern so that you always call Dispose regardless of any exceptions that might occur.