Question

Why does Visual Studio add this code to the Class.Designer.cs partial class.
Can anyone tell me when this components variable is going to get some value? What’s the pattern to follow here?

private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components = null;

        /// <summary>
        /// Clean up any resources being used.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="disposing">true if managed resources should be disposed; otherwise, false.</param>
        protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
        {
            if(disposing && (components != null))
            {
                components.Dispose();
            }
            base.Dispose(disposing);
        }

Answer 1

The private field components is used to track disposable components on your form. Try dragging in a Timer component, and you should see something like this in the designer generated code:

this.components = new System.ComponentModel.Container();
this.timer1 = new System.Windows.Forms.Timer(this.components);

The pattern displayed in the Dispose(bool) method is usually referred to as the disposable pattern. Basically, the pattern ensures that all of the tracked components will be disposed, even if you never call the Dispose method explicitly, in which case the base class of your form will call the Dispose method in its finalizer (during garbage collection).