Is there a better deterministic disposal pattern t

Question

In C#, if I want to deterministically clean up non-managed resources, I can use the "using" keyword. But for multiple dependent objects, this ends up nesting further and further:

using (FileStream fs = new FileStream("c:\file.txt", FileMode.Open))
{
    using (BufferedStream bs = new BufferedStream(fs))
    {
        using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(bs))
        {
            // use sr, and have everything cleaned up when done.
        }
    }
}

In C++, I'm used to being able to use destructors to do it like this:

{    
    FileStream fs("c:\file.txt", FileMode.Open);
    BufferedStream bs(fs);
    StreamReader sr(bs);
    // use sr, and have everything cleaned up when done.
}

Is there a better way in C# to do this? Or am I stuck with the multiple levels of nesting?

Answer 1

You could use this syntax to condense things down a bit:

using (FileStream fs = new FileStream("c:\file.txt", FileMode.Open))
using (BufferedStream bs = new BufferedStream(fs))
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(bs))
{
}

This is one of those rare occasions where not using { } for all blocks makes sense IMHO.

Answer 2

You don't have to nest with multiple usings:

using (FileStream fs = new FileStream("c:\file.txt", FileMode.Open))
using (BufferedStream bs = new BufferedStream(fs))
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(bs))
{
    // all three get disposed when you're done
}

Answer 3

It should be noted that generally when creating stream based off another stream the new stream will close the one being passed in. So, to further reduce your example:

using (Stream Reader sr = new StreamReader( new BufferedStream( new FileStream("c:\file.txt", FileMode.Open))))
{
    // all three get disposed when you're done
}

Answer 4

You can put using statements together before the opening braces like so:

  using (StreamWriter w1 = File.CreateText("W1"))
  using (StreamWriter w2 = File.CreateText("W2"))
  {
      // code here
  }

http://blogs.msdn.com/ericgu/archive/2004/08/05/209267.aspx

Answer 5

for this example let us assume you have:

a file named 1.xml under c:\

a textbox named textBox1, with the multi-line properties set ON.

const string fname = @"c:\1.xml";

StreamReader sr=new StreamReader(new BufferedStream(new FileStream(fname,FileMode.Open,FileAccess.Read,FileShare.Delete)));
textBox1.Text = sr.ReadToEnd();

Answer 6

The using statement is syntactic sugar that converts to:

   try
   {
      obj declaration
      ...
   }
   finally
   {
      obj.Dispose();
   }

You can explicitly call Dispose on your objects, but it won't be as safe, since if one of them throws an exception, the resources won't be freed properly.