IDisposable in C#

In C#, IDisposable is an interface that provides a mechanism to release unmanaged resources explicitly. It's particularly useful when dealing with resources such as file handles, database connections, network connections, or any resource that is not managed by the .NET runtime's garbage collector.

Purpose of IDisposable

The primary purpose of IDisposable is to clean up resources that are not automatically managed by the garbage collector, which only manages memory allocated by the .NET runtime itself (managed resources).

Examples of unmanaged resources include:

• File handles and streams
• Database connections
• Network sockets
• COM objects
• Handles to operating system resources

When a class implements IDisposable, it promises that it has resources that need to be explicitly released. The Dispose method should be implemented to release these resources. This method can be called explicitly by user code or can be invoked automatically using the using statement.

The using statement ensures that the Dispose method is called on an object that implements IDisposable, even if an exception occurs. It simplifies the code for managing resources and helps avoid resource leaks.