C# – How to prevent IDisposable from spreading to all your classes

cdisposegarbage-collectionidisposablenet

Start with these simple classes…

Let's say I have a simple set of classes like this: 

class Bus
{
    Driver busDriver = new Driver();
}

class Driver
{
    Shoe[] shoes = { new Shoe(), new Shoe() };
}

class Shoe
{
    Shoelace lace = new Shoelace();
}

class Shoelace
{
    bool tied = false;
}

A Bus has a Driver, the Driver has two Shoes, each Shoe has a Shoelace. All very silly.

Add an IDisposable object to Shoelace

Later I decide that some operation on the Shoelace could be multi-threaded, so I add an EventWaitHandle for the threads to communicate with. So Shoelace now looks like this:

class Shoelace
{
    private AutoResetEvent waitHandle = new AutoResetEvent(false);
    bool tied = false;
    // ... other stuff ..
}

Implement IDisposable on Shoelace

But now Microsoft's FxCop will complain: "Implement IDisposable on 'Shoelace' because it creates members of the following IDisposable types: 'EventWaitHandle'."

Okay, I implement IDisposable on Shoelace and my neat little class becomes this horrible mess:

class Shoelace : IDisposable
{
    private AutoResetEvent waitHandle = new AutoResetEvent(false);
    bool tied = false;
    private bool disposed = false;

    public void Dispose()
    {
        Dispose(true);
        GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
    }

    ~Shoelace()
    {
        Dispose(false);
    }

    protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing)
    {
        if (!this.disposed)
        {
            if (disposing)
            {
                if (waitHandle != null)
                {
                    waitHandle.Close();
                    waitHandle = null;
                }
            }
            // No unmanaged resources to release otherwise they'd go here.
        }
        disposed = true;
    }
}

Or (as pointed out by commenters) since Shoelace itself has no unmanaged resources, I might use the simpler dispose implementation without needing the Dispose(bool) and Destructor:

class Shoelace : IDisposable
{
    private AutoResetEvent waitHandle = new AutoResetEvent(false);
    bool tied = false;

    public void Dispose()
    {
        if (waitHandle != null)
        {
            waitHandle.Close();
            waitHandle = null;
        }
        GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
    }
}

Watch in horror as IDisposable spreads

Right that's that fixed. But now FxCop will complain that Shoe creates a Shoelace, so Shoe must be IDisposable too.

And Driver creates Shoe so Driver must be IDisposable.
And Bus creates Driver so Bus must be IDisposable and so on.

Suddenly my small change to Shoelace is causing me a lot of work and my boss is wondering why I need to checkout Bus to make a change to Shoelace.

The Question

How do you prevent this spread of IDisposable, but still ensure that your unmanaged objects are properly disposed?

Best Answer

You can't really "prevent" IDisposable from spreading. Some classes need to be disposed, like AutoResetEvent, and the most efficient way is to do it in the Dispose() method to avoid the overhead of finalizers. But this method must be called somehow, so exactly as in your example the classes that encapsulate or contain IDisposable have to dispose these, so they have to be disposable as well, etc. The only way to avoid it is to:

  • avoid using IDisposable classes where possible, lock or wait for events in single places, keep expensive resources in single place, etc
  • create them only when you need them and dispose them just after (the using pattern)

In some cases IDisposable can be ignored because it supports an optional case. For example, WaitHandle implements IDisposable to support a named Mutex. If a name is not being used, the Dispose method does nothing. MemoryStream is another example, it uses no system resources and its Dispose implementation also does nothing. Careful thinking about whether an unmanaged resource is being used or not can be instructional. So can examining the available sources for the .net libraries or using a decompiler.

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