Question

Why using (var sw = new StreamWriter(ms)) returns Cannot access a closed Stream exception while the MemoryStream is on top of this code?

using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
{
    using (var sw = new StreamWriter(ms))
    {                 
        sw.WriteLine("data");
        sw.WriteLine("data 2");
        ms.Position = 0;
        using (var sr = new StreamReader(ms))
        {
            Console.WriteLine(sr.ReadToEnd());                        
        }
    } //error here
}

Answer 1

This is because the StreamReader closes the underlying stream automatically when being disposed of. The using statement does this automatically.

However, the StreamWriter you’re using is still trying to work on the stream (also, the using statement for the writer is now trying to dispose of the StreamWriter, which is then trying to close the stream).

The best way to fix this is: don’t use using and don’t dispose of the StreamReader and StreamWriter. See this question.

using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
{
    var sw = new StreamWriter(ms);
    var sr = new StreamReader(ms);

    sw.WriteLine("data");
    sw.WriteLine("data 2");
    ms.Position = 0;

    Console.WriteLine(sr.ReadToEnd());                        
}

If you feel bad about sw and sr being garbage-collected without being disposed of in your code (as recommended), you could do something like that:

StreamWriter sw = null;
StreamReader sr = null;

try
{
    using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
    {
        sw = new StreamWriter(ms);
        sr = new StreamReader(ms);

        sw.WriteLine("data");
        sw.WriteLine("data 2");
        ms.Position = 0;

        Console.WriteLine(sr.ReadToEnd());                        
    }
}
finally
{
    if (sw != null) sw.Dispose();
    if (sr != null) sr.Dispose();
}