using statement FileStream and / or StreamReader -

Question

The new Visual Studio 2012 is complaining about a common code combination I have always used. I know it seems like overkill but I have done the following in my code 'just to be sure'.

using (var fs = new FileStream(filePath, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite))
{
    using (var sr = new StreamReader(fs))
    {
        // Code here
    }
}

Visual studio is 'warning' me that I am disposing of fs more than once. So my question is this, would the proper way to write this be:

using (var fs = new FileStream(filePath, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite))
{
    var sr = new StreamReader(fs);
    // do stuff here
}

Or should I do it this way (or some other variant not mentioned).

var fs = new FileStream(filePath, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite);

using (var sr = new StreamReader(fs))
{
    // Code here
}

I searched several questions in StackOverflow but did not find something that addressed the best practice for this combination directly.

Thank you!

Answer 1

It's because the way you used StreamReader disposes the stream when it is disposed. So, if you dispose the stream too, it's being disposed twice. Some consider this a flaw in StreamReader--but it's there none-the-less. In VS 2012 (.NET 4.5) there is an option in StreamReader to not dispose of the stream, with a new constructor: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg712952