Do You Know What Happens When We Use "Using?"

In C#, we usually put connection objects or resources that should be closed once being reused inside the using. Do we really know what happens, when we put instantiate within using?

When we write inside the using block the compiler coverts the code as try and finally block. This is the reason we don’t need to explicitly release or dispose the object, once it’s being used, as the object created gets disposed inside the finally block.

Please see the code snippet given below as well as the respective IL code for better understanding.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace ConsoleApplication1 {
    public class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            using(var obj = new CustomDbConnection()) {
                //Your Code Goes Here
            }
        }
    }
}

Respective IL code

In the code given below, you can see the code given above within using interpreted as try, finally block and the dispose method gets called inside the finally.

Note

Within using, you can instantiate the objects of class, which implements IDisposable interface, so dispose method can be called.

.method private hidebysig static void Main(string[] args) cil managed {.entrypoint
        // Code size 29 (0x1d)
        .maxstack 2.locals init([0] class ConsoleApplication1.CustomDbConnection obj, [1] bool CS$4$0000)
    IL_0000: nop
    IL_0001: newobj instance void ConsoleApplication1.CustomDbConnection::.ctor()
    IL_0006: stloc .0.try {
        IL_0007: nop
        IL_0008: nop
        IL_0009: leave.s IL_001b
    } // end .try
    finally {
        IL_000b: ldloc .0
        IL_000c: ldnull
        IL_000d: ceq
        IL_000f: stloc .1
        IL_0010: ldloc .1
        IL_0011: brtrue.s IL_001a
        IL_0013: ldloc .0
        IL_0014: callvirt instance void[mscorlib] System.IDisposable::Dispose()
        IL_0019: nop
        IL_001a: endfinally
    } // end handler
    IL_001b: nop
    IL_001c: ret
} // end of method Program::Main

 

I believe, this helps us to understand what actually happens when we write the code inside the using block.