Question

This was a telephone interview question I had: Is there a time when Dispose will not be called on an object whose scope is declared by a using block?

My answer was no – even if an exception happens during the using block, Dispose will still be called.

The interviewer disagreed and said if using is wrapped in a try–catch block then Dispose will not be called by the time you enter the catch block.

This goes contrary to my understanding of the construct, and I haven’t been able to find anything that backs up the interviewers point of view. Is he correct or might I have misunderstood the question?

Answer 1

void Main()
{
    try
    {
        using(var d = new MyDisposable())
        {
            throw new Exception("Hello");
        }
    }
    catch
    {
        "Exception caught.".Dump();
    }

}

class MyDisposable : IDisposable
{
    public void Dispose()
    {
        "Disposed".Dump();
    }
}

This produced :

Disposed
Exception caught

So I agree with you and not with the smarty interviewer…