Develop Reference

Is it possible to force C# finalizers be run in .NET Core on program exit?

I have a .NET Core C# class that wraps an unmanaged pointer and it should be freed on program exit along with other resource cleanup. However, the destructor is not being called. I have tried in both Debug and Release mode. I see that .NET Core apparently doesn't guarantee that destructors will be run, so what is a recommended workaround? IMO the main point of garbage collection is to avoid having the developer track references, so I find this behavior surprising, to say the least.
From MSDN: In .NET Framework applications (but not in .NET Core applications), finalizers are also called when the program exits.
public Demo {
IntPtr _ptr;
public Demo()
{
Console.WriteLine("Constructor");
_ptr = /* P-invoke external function */
~Demo
{
Console.WriteLine("Destructor");
/*P-invoke ptr deletion */
}
}
public static void Main()
{
Demo demo = new Demo();
demo = null;
GC.Collect();
}
Program output:
Constructor
<...>\Test.exe (process 7968) exited with code 0.

More changes are needed to improve the likelihood that the finalizer will be called.
Btw, Finalizer is never guaranteed to be called. If you want to gurantee the resources release, implement IDisposable and call Dispose() before the app/method/code block exit. Additionally to make Dispose() guaranteed to call (even if app crashes, except FailFast and StackOverflow) before exiting the code block, use try-finally or using statements.
Here's an example to play with.
public class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("[main] Constructing");
MyDisposable m = new MyDisposable(0);
MyMethod(1);
Console.WriteLine("[main] Disposing [object 0]");
m.Dispose();
Console.WriteLine("[main] GC Collecting");
GC.Collect();
GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();
Console.WriteLine("[main] Done");
Console.ReadKey();
}
private static void MyMethod(int i)
{
new MyDisposable(i);
}
}
public class MyDisposable : IDisposable
{
private int _id;
public MyDisposable(int id)
{
_id = id;
Console.WriteLine($"[object {_id}] Constructed");
}
private bool disposed = false;
public void Dispose()
{
Dispose(true);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
}
protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if (!disposed)
{
if (disposing)
{
Console.WriteLine($"[object {_id}] Disposing by Dispose()");
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine($"[object {_id}] Disposing by ~Finalizer");
}
Console.WriteLine($"[object {_id}] Disposed");
disposed = true;
}
else
Console.WriteLine($"[object {_id}] Already disposed!");
}
~MyDisposable()
{
Dispose(false);
}
}
Output
[main] Constructing
[object 0] Constructed
[object 1] Constructed
[main] Disposing [object 0]
[object 0] Disposing by Dispose()
[object 0] Disposed
[main] GC Collecting
[object 1] Disposing by ~Finalizer
[object 1] Disposed
[main] Done
Some read: Using objects that implement IDisposable.

The official Cleaning up unmanaged resources
states:
If your types use unmanaged resources, you should do the following:
Implement the dispose pattern. (...)
In the event that a consumer of your type forgets to call Dispose, provide a way for your unmanaged resources to be released. There are two ways to do this:
Use a safe handle to wrap your unmanaged resource. This is the recommended technique. Safe handles are derived from the System.Runtime.InteropServices.SafeHandle abstract class and include a robust Finalize method. When you use a safe handle, you simply implement the IDisposable interface and call your safe handle's Dispose method in your IDisposable.Dispose implementation. The safe handle's finalizer is called automatically by the garbage collector if its Dispose method is not called.
(...)
Implement a Dispose method
contains:
'the general pattern for implementing the dispose pattern for a base class that uses a safe handle'; and
'the general pattern for implementing the dispose pattern for a base class that overrides Object.Finalize'.

Why IDisposable interface? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Proper use of the IDisposable interface
(20 answers)
Closed 2 years ago.
I've gone through many article which says the purpose of IDisposable is to close the unmanaged objects like DB connections and Third party reports.But my question is why should I define Dispose method if I can handle the unmanaged objects in my methods without defining Dispose() method?
For an example,
class Report : IDisposable
{
public void GenerateReport()
{
Report rpt=new Report() //unmanaged object created
rpt.Dispose(); // Disposing the unmanaged object
}
private void Dispose()
{
//not sure why this block is needed
}
}
Is my understanding correct?

You're correct that you wouldn't need the implement IDisposable in your example. The example where you would is if you're keeping a long lived object for the life of the class you've written. So say you had this:
public class Report : IDisposable
{
private Stream _reportStream; // This variable lives a long time.
public void WriteToStream(byte[] data)
{
_reportStream.Write(data, 0, data.Length);
}
public void Dispose()
{
_reportStream?.Dispose();
}
}
This is a fairly simple example, but it shows that _reportStream lives for the length of the class and needs to get cleaned up and garbage collected at the same time as the class. There's nothing stopping you from creating a public method called CleanupObject() to do the same thing, but then people can't use a using block to have the Runtime call the Dispose() automatically:
using (var myReport = new Report())
{
// do a bunch of things with myReport;
} // Here the runtime will call myReport.Dispose() for you.
// myReport isn't accessible from here, as it was declared in the using block

The class that implements the IDisposable interface can be used in the using block. A big plus of this solution is that after leaving the block the Dispose method will be automatically called on the object created in this area. That way, we can only use classes that implement the IDisposable interface.
//example :
using(var dClean= new DisposableClean())
{
//after leaving this using dClean will be automatically destroyed
}
The object that you've created needs to expose some method, not necessary named Dispose(). You could also call it Clean(). Dispose() is the conventional name.

Garbage Collector(GC), available throughout the .Net framwork, works well enough to be easily forgotten. However, it is worth learning to work with him well and use his possibilities. For this purpose, the correct implementation of the IDisposable interface is necessary, the basic form of which is sometimes insufficient if we consider the proper release of managed and unmanaged resources.
This is extanded version which can be very useful in this case.
In a way an answer to you question:
public class DisposableExtended: IDisposable
{
private bool isDisposed = false;
public void Dispose ()
{
this.Dispose (true);
GC.SupressFinalize (this);
}
protected void Dispose (bool disposing)
{
if (! this.isDisposed)
{
if (disposing)
{
// here we release managed resources (standard classes)
}
// here we release unmanaged resources (e.g. streams, etc..)
{
}
}
this .isDisposed = true;
}
~ DisposableExtended ()
{
this.Dispose (false);
}

Yes, you can define your own way to release resources but many existing code use this way. If you share your code to people, remember to tell them to dispose in your way.
One "profit" of implementing IDisposable is that you can call Dispose indirectly by use a language construct such as using.
For example:
using(Stream s = File.OpenRead("HelloWorld.bin"))
{
//Do stuffs
}

Dispose/finalize pattern : disposing managed ressources

Let's imagine I have a class named Base with 3 attributes :
class Base : IDisposable
{
private string _String;
private Class1 classe1;
private int foo;
public void Dispose()
{
this.Dispose(true);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
}
public virtual void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if (disposing)
{
Console.WriteLine("Free Managed ressources");
//HOW TO FREE _String, class1 and foo ?!
}
Console.WriteLine("Free unmanaged ressources");
}
~Base()
{
this.Dispose(false);
}
}
and a classe named Class1 with 2 attributes :
class Class1
{
public int entier { get; set; }
public string Nom { get; set; }
}
My question is : How can I free the attributes of Base in the Dispose method ? (_String, classe1, foo)

My question is : How can I free the attributes of Base in the Dispose
method ? (_String, classe1, foo)
You don't need to, that's the job of the garbage collector. Implementing IDisposable is a way for the framework to let you release any unmanaged resources you have allocated, and dispose managed objects implementing IDisposable themselves (which in turn hold other unmanaged resources).
None of the managed objects at your disposable implement IDisposable, and they will be collected once there is no longer any objects pointing to your Base class. When will that happen? In an arbitrary time, when the GC see's that there is no longer space in generation 0, and it needs to collect. There is nothing you need to do.
Implementing IDisposable does not mean "this object will be collected immediatly once i run Dispose()", it merely means that the framework gives you a chance to reclaim any resources it might not be aware of (such as unmanaged ones). It is a recommended approach, if one implements a finalizer, to suppress the call to it via GC.SuppressFinalize, saving the GC the trouble of moving your object from the Finalizer Queue to the F-Reachable Queue, hence making it available for collection earlier.
when will these 3 attributes free from the heap ? The garbage
collector won't free them because I have GC.SuppressFinalize(this)
You have a basic misunderstanding of how the GC works and what SuppressFinalize means. The GC will run at an non-deterministic time, and you basically shouldn't care when that happens. It's his responsibility to clean up after you. Calling SuppressFinalize on an object implementing a finalizer does nothing more than set a bit in the objects header which the runtime checks when calling finalizers, which will suppress your finalizer from running

In this case, you shouldn't implement IDisposable at all, or if it was there because it was deemed very likely that it could be necessary in the future, then it would have an empty implementation. You certainly shouldn't have a finaliser in there; never have one unless you actually need one with 100% certainty.
There are a few cases where you would want to implement IDisposable, and in some of those cases you'd also want to have a destructor (which is the C# way of having a finaliser).
One is where you have something that it is really important to do when the object is finished with, most often undoing something you have previously done, such as releasing a handle that you'd obtained, closing a connection you'd opened, etc. but not managed memory. (All objects use managed memory, and all objects have their managed memory cleaned up for them if they're can't be used again and more managed memory is needed by something else, that's what the managed in "managed memory" means).
public class SomeClass : IDisposable
{
private IntPtr _someHandle;
public SomeClass(string someIdentifier)
{
_someHandle = GetHandle(someIdentifier);
}
public void Dispose()
{
ReleaseHandle(_someHandle);
}
}
So now whenever something that's been using a SomeClass is done with it, it calls Dispose() on it (perhaps implicitly via a using block) and all is cleaned up nicely.
But what if that doesn't happen? Well, that's why we might have a finaliser:
public class SomeClass : IDisposable
{
private IntPtr _someHandle;
public SomeClass(string someIdentifier)
{
_someHandle = GetHandle(someIdentifier);
}
public void Dispose()
{
ReleaseHandle(_someHandle);
_someHandle = null; // so we know not to release twice.
}
~SomeClass()
{
if(_someHandle != null)
ReleaseHandle(_someHandle);
}
}
So, here if the Dispose() doesn't get called, we still get the clean-up, because the normal garbage-collection process:
Realise you need more memory.
Find objects that aren't going to be used any more.
Reclaim the memory of those objects.
Has the following steps added:
Realise the object whose memory you were going to reclaim has a finaliser to run.
Put the object into a queue of other such objects.
(On a separate thread) run the finaliser of the object.
The object is no longer an object that "has a finaliser to run" as per step 4 above, so next time around it can be reclaimed.
All of this has downsides:
We can't guarantee when, if ever, this will happen.
We didn't get to reclaim as much memory in step 3, because there was such an object.
Garbage collection is generational, and playing nicely with generational collection for an object means either dying quickly or living a long time, dying just after the first time the GC tried to collect an object is pretty much the least optimal time.
We can get around the first two by calling Dispose() rather than letting finalisation happen, which is up to the user of the class, not the class itself. We get around the third by having an object that knows it doesn't need to be finalised mark itself as no longer needing to be:
public class SomeClass : IDisposable
{
private IntPtr _someHandle;
public SomeClass(string someIdentifier)
{
_someHandle = GetHandle(someIdentifier);
}
public void Dispose()
{
ReleaseHandle(_someHandle);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
}
~SomeClass()
{
ReleaseHandle(_someHandle);
}
}
If an object has been passed to GC.SuppressFinalize() then step 4 and subsequent don't happen.
The second case where you might what to implement IDisposable is where you have an IDisposable object as a field of another object that "owns" it (controls it's lifetime):
public class SomeOtherClass : IDisposable
{
private SomeClass _someObj;
public SomeOtherClass(string someIdentifier)
{
_someObj = new SomeClass(someIdentifier);
}
public void Dispose()
{
//If base type is disposable
//call `base.Dispose()` here too.
_someObj.Dispose();
}
}
Cleaning up a SomeOtherClass hence means cleaning up the SomeClass it has as a field. Note that here we do not have a finaliser here. We can't need a finaliser, because it would have nothing to do; at best it would do nothing and just have the downsides of finalisers mentioned above, at worse it would try to clean up _someObj without knowing whether this would happen before or after _someObj cleaning itself up and with _someObj queued to clean itself up in a way where it can assume nothing else will do the clean-up.
For the third case, consider if we combine the two cases with a class that has both an unmanaged resource it releases and a field which is a disposable class. Here if we are Dispose()d we want to clean up both, but if we are finalised we want to only clean up the unmanaged resource that is dealt with directly:
public sealed class SomeHybridClass : IDisposable
{
private IntPtr _someHandle;
private SomeClass _someObj;
public SomeHybridClass(string someIdentifier)
{
_someHandle = GetHandle(someIdentifier);
_someObj = new SomeClass(someIdentifier);
}
public void Dispose()
{
ReleaseHandle(_someHandle);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
_someObj.Dispose();
}
~SomeHybridClass()
{
ReleaseHandle(_someHandle);
}
}
Now, since there's repetition here, it makes sense to refactor them into the same method:
public sealed class SomeHybridClass : IDisposable
{
private IntPtr _someHandle;
private SomeClass _someObj;
public SomeHybridClass(string someIdentifier)
{
_someHandle = GetHandle(someIdentifier);
_someObj = new SomeClass(someIdentifier);
}
private void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if(disposing)
{
_someObj.Dispose();
}
ReleaseHandle(_someHandle);
}
public void Dispose()
{
Dispose(true);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
}
~SomeHybridClass()
{
Dispose(false);
}
}
And for a fourth case, imagine if this class wasn't sealed; it's derived types also need to be able to do this clean-up, so we make the parameterised Dispose(bool) method protected:
public class SomeHybridClass : IDisposable
{
private IntPtr _someHandle;
private SomeClass _someObj;
public SomeHybridClass(string someIdentifier)
{
_someHandle = GetHandle(someIdentifier);
_someObj = new SomeClass(someIdentifier);
}
protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
// if this in turn was derived, we'd call
// base.Dispose(disposing) here too.
if(disposing)
{
_someObj.Dispose();
}
ReleaseHandle(_someHandle);
}
public void Dispose()
{
Dispose(true);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
}
~SomeHybridClass()
{
Dispose(false);
}
}
However, these last two examples are really solving the wrong problems: They're solving the problem of how to have a class that has both a disposable type as a field and an unmanaged resource, and/or be part of a type hierarchy with this happening. Really you're much better off never getting into this situation; either have a class that only deals with an unmanaged resource (and is sealed) or has disposable types in fields, and you end up with only having the deal with the first two cases. If you deal with your unmanaged resources by deriving from SafeHandle then you are really only having to worry about the second case, and that also manages some difficult edge cases too.
Really, finalisers should very, very rarely be written, and when they are written they should be written to be as simple as possible, because there's enough complication inherent to them and the edge-cases around them as it is. You need to know how to deal with overriding protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing) (note, should never be public) to deal with the legacy of when that had seemed like a good idea to someone, but not have inheritable classes with both unmanaged and managed-disposable resources forcing someone else into that position.
How can I free the attributes of Base in the Dispose method ? (_String, classe1, foo)
As should now be clear, those fields (attributes are a very different thing in .NET) don't need to be freed. The only resource they have is managed memory, so once they can't be reached (aren't in a static, aren't about to have something done to them in a method, and aren't in a field of something that is in either of those categories or a field of something that is in a field in either of those, etc.) their memory will be automatically reclaimed when needed.

Weak References and Disposable objects

In C# it is possible to create weak references to objects as described here:
WeakReference Class
In .net some classes also implement the IDisposable interface. Calling the Dispose method of this interface is performed to manually dispose of any managed or unmanaged resources currently being held onto. An example might be a Bitmap object or class.
If I assign an object that implements IDisposable to a weak reference, will Dispose be called if the weak reference collects the object?

In general, the answer is indeed No.
However, a properly implemented class that implements IDisposable using the IDisposable pattern (hopefuly all .NET classes do this). Would also implement finalizer which is called when the object is garbage collected and inside the finalizer, it would call Dispose. So, for all proper implementations of IDisposable, the Dispose method will be called.
(Note: the counter-example by Fernando is not implementing IDisposable properly)

GC does not ever call Dispose. Dispose must be called by user code.

No. Simple like that ;)

No. Check this test:
class Program {
static void Main(string[] args) {
Test test = new Test();
Console.WriteLine(test.Disposable == null);
GC.Collect();
Console.WriteLine(test.Disposable == null);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
public class Test {
private WeakReference disposable = new WeakReference(new WeakDisposable());
public WeakDisposable Disposable {
get { return disposable.Target as WeakDisposable; }
}
}
public class WeakDisposable : IDisposable {
~WeakDisposable() {
Console.WriteLine("Destructor");
}
public void Dispose() {
Console.WriteLine("Dispose");
}
}
The output is:
False
True
Destructor
As you can see, the execution never hits the Dispose method.

Calling base.Dispose() automatically from derived classes

Edit - New Question
Ok lets rephrase the question more generically.
Using reflection, is there a way to dynamically call at runtime a base class method that you may be overriding. You cannot use the 'base' keyword at compile time because you cannot be sure it exists. At runtime I want to list my ancestors methods and call the ancestor methods.
I tried using GetMethods() and such but all they return are "pointers" to the most derived implementation of the method. Not an implementation on a base class.
Background
We are developing a system in C# 3.0 with a relatively big class hierarchy. Some of these classes, anywhere in the hierarchy, have resources that need to be
disposed of, those implement the IDisposable interface.
The Problem
Now, to facilitate maintenance and refactoring of the code I would like to find a way, for classes implementing IDisposable,
to "automatically" call base.Dispose(bDisposing) if any ancestors also implements IDisposable. This way, if some class higher up in the hierarchy starts implementing
or stops implementing IDisposable that will be taken care of automatically.
The issue is two folds.
First, finding if any ancestors implements IDisposable.
Second, calling base.Dispose(bDisposing) conditionally.
The first part, finding about ancestors implementing IDisposable, I have been able to deal with.
The second part is the tricky one. Despite all my
efforts, I haven't been able to call base.Dispose(bDisposing) from a derived class. All my attempts failed. They either caused
compilation errors or called the wrong Dispose() method, that is the most derived one, thus looping forever.
The main issue is that you cannot actually refer to base.Dispose() directly in your code if there is no such thing as an
ancestor implementing it (be reminded that there might have no ancestors yet implementing IDisposable, but I want the derived code to be ready when and if such
a thing happens in the future). That leave us with the Reflection mechanisms, but I did not find a proper way of doing it. Our code is quite filled with
advanced reflection techniques and I think I did not miss anything obvious there.
My Solution
My best shot yet was to have some conditional code using in commented code. Changing the IDisposable hierarchy would either break the build
(if no IDisposable ancestor exists) or throw an exception (if there are IDisposable ancestors but base.Dispose is not called).
Here is some code I am posting to show you what my Dispose(bDisposing) method looks like. I am putting this code at the end of all the Dispose()
methods throughout the hierarchy. Any new classes are created from templates that also includes this code.
public class MyOtherClassBase
{
// ...
}
public class MyDerivedClass : MyOtherClassBase, ICalibrable
{
private bool m_bDisposed = false;
~MyDerivedClass()
{
Dispose(false);
}
public void Dispose()
{
Dispose(true);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
}
protected virtual void Dispose(bool bDisposing)
{
if (!m_bDisposed) {
if (bDisposing) {
// Dispose managed resources
}
// Dispose unmanaged resources
}
m_bDisposed = true;
Type baseType = typeof(MyDerivedClass).BaseType;
if (baseType != null) {
if (baseType.GetInterface("IDisposable") != null) {
// If you have no ancestors implementing base.Dispose(...), comment
// the following line AND uncomment the throw.
//
// This way, if any of your ancestors decide one day to implement
// IDisposable you will know about it right away and proceed to
// uncomment the base.Dispose(...) in addition to commenting the throw.
//base.Dispose(bDisposing);
throw new ApplicationException("Ancestor base.Dispose(...) not called - "
+ baseType.ToString());
}
}
}
}
So, I am asking is there a way to call base.Dispose() automatically/conditionally instead?
More Background
There is another mechanism in the application where all objects are registered with a main class. The class checks if they implement IDisposable.
If so, they are disposed of properly by the application. This avoids having the code using the classes to deal with
calling Dispose() all around by themselves. Thus, adding IDisposable to a class that has no ancestor history of IDisposable still works perfectly.

The standard pattern is for your base class to implement IDisposable and the non-virtual Dispose() method, and to implement a virtual Dispose(bool) method, which those classes which hold disposable resources must override. They should always call their base Dispose(bool) method, which will chain up to the top class in the hierarchy eventually. Only those classes which override it will be called, so the chain is usually quite short.
Finalizers, spelled ~Class in C#: Don't. Very few classes will need one, and it's very easy to accidentally keep large object graphs around, because the finalizers require at least two collections before the memory is released. On the first collection after the object is no longer referenced, it's put on a queue of finalizers to be run. These are run on a separate, dedicated thread which only runs finalizers (if it gets blocked, no more finalizers run and your memory usage explodes). Once the finalizer has run, the next collection that collects the appropriate generation will free the object and anything else it was referencing that isn't otherwise referenced. Unfortunately, because it survives the first collection, it will be placed into the older generation which is collected less frequently. For this reason, you should Dispose early and often.
Generally, you should implement a small resource wrapper class that only manages the resource lifetime and implement a finalizer on that class, plus IDisposable. The user of the class should then call Dispose on this when it is disposed. There shouldn't be a back-link to the user. That way, only the thing that actually needs finalization ends up on the finalization queue.
If you are going to need them anywhere in the hierarchy, the base class that implements IDisposable should implement the finalizer and call Dispose(bool), passing false as the parameter.
WARNING for Windows Mobile developers (VS2005 and 2008, .NET Compact Framework 2.0 and 3.5): many non-controls that you drop onto your designer surface, e.g. menu bars, timers, HardwareButtons, derive from System.ComponentModel.Component, which implements a finalizer. For desktop projects, Visual Studio adds the components to a System.ComponentModel.Container named components, which it generates code to Dispose when the form is Disposed - it in turn Disposes all the components that have been added. For the mobile projects, the code to Dispose components is generated, but dropping a component onto the surface does not generate the code to add it to components. You have to do this yourself in your constructor after calling InitializeComponent.

Personally, I think you might be better off handling this with something like FxCop. You should be able to write a rule that check so see if when an object is created that implements IDisposable that you use a using statement.
It seems a little dirty (to me) to automatically dispose an object.

There is not an "accepted" way of doing this. You really want to make your clean up logic (whether it runs inside of a Dispose or a finalizer) as simple as possible so it won't fail. Using reflection inside of a dispose (and especially a finalizer) is generally a bad idea.
As far as implementing finalizers, in general you don't need to. Finalizers add a cost to your object and are hard to write correctly as most of the assumptions you can normally make about the state of the object and the runtime are not valid.
See this article for more information on the Dispose pattern.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
namespace TestDisposeInheritance
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
classC c = new classC();
c.Dispose();
}
}
class classA: IDisposable
{
private bool m_bDisposed;
protected virtual void Dispose(bool bDisposing)
{
if (!m_bDisposed)
{
if (bDisposing)
{
// Dispose managed resources
Console.WriteLine("Dispose A");
}
// Dispose unmanaged resources
}
}
public void Dispose()
{
Dispose(true);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
Console.WriteLine("Disposing A");
}
}
class classB : classA, IDisposable
{
private bool m_bDisposed;
public void Dispose()
{
Dispose(true);
base.Dispose();
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
Console.WriteLine("Disposing B");
}
protected override void Dispose(bool bDisposing)
{
if (!m_bDisposed)
{
if (bDisposing)
{
// Dispose managed resources
Console.WriteLine("Dispose B");
}
// Dispose unmanaged resources
}
}
}
class classC : classB, IDisposable
{
private bool m_bDisposed;
public void Dispose()
{
Dispose(true);
base.Dispose();
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
Console.WriteLine("Disposing C");
}
protected override void Dispose(bool bDisposing)
{
if (!m_bDisposed)
{
if (bDisposing)
{
// Dispose managed resources
Console.WriteLine("Dispose C");
}
// Dispose unmanaged resources
}
}
}
}

If you wanted to use [basetype].Invoke("Dispose"...) then you could implement the function call without the debugger complaining. Then later when the base type actually implements the IDisposable interface it will execute the proper call.

If you wanted to use [basetype].Invoke("Dispose"...) then you could implement the function call without the debugger complaining. Then later when the base type actually implements the IDisposable interface it will execute the proper call.

Try this. It's a one-line addition to the Dispose() method, and calls the ancestor's dispose, if it exists. (Note that Dispose(bool) is not a member of IDisposable)
// Disposal Helper Functions
public static class Disposing
{
// Executes IDisposable.Dispose() if it exists.
public static void DisposeSuperclass(object o)
{
Type baseType = o.GetType().BaseType;
bool superclassIsDisposable = typeof(IDisposable).IsAssignableFrom(baseType);
if (superclassIsDisposable)
{
System.Reflection.MethodInfo baseDispose = baseType.GetMethod("Dispose", new Type[] { });
baseDispose.Invoke(o, null);
}
}
}
class classA: IDisposable
{
public void Dispose()
{
Console.WriteLine("Disposing A");
}
}
class classB : classA, IDisposable
{
}
class classC : classB, IDisposable
{
public void Dispose()
{
Console.WriteLine("Disposing C");
Disposing.DisposeSuperclass(this);
}
}

public class MyVeryBaseClass {
protected void RealDispose(bool isDisposing) {
IDisposable tryme = this as IDisposable;
if (tryme != null) { // we implement IDisposable
this.Dispose();
base.RealDispose(isDisposing);
}
}
}
public class FirstChild : MyVeryBaseClasee {
//non-disposable
}
public class SecondChild : FirstChild, IDisposable {
~SecondChild() {
Dispose(false);
}
public void Dispose() {
Dispose(true);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
base.RealDispose(true);
}
protected virtual void Dispose(bool bDisposing) {
if (!m_bDisposed) {
if (bDisposing) {
}// Dispose managed resources
} // Dispose unmanaged resources
}
}
That way, you are responsible to implement right only the first class which is IDisposable.