c# - close or dispose

Question

StreamReader class has both close and dispose method. I want to know which method to call to clean up all resources.

If making use of using block, I think it will call its dispose method. Will it be enough to clean up all the resources.

Answer 1

The using block will call Dispose() on the StreamReader instance. Generally speaking, if a type is IDisposable, you should put it in using scope.

EDIT: If you look at the Close() implementation of StreamReader using Reflector, you will see that it's calling Dispose(true). So if you're not using the using scope, calling Close() manually would be the same as calling Dispose() in this particular case.

protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
    try
    {
        if ((this.Closable && disposing) && (this.stream != null))
        {
            this.stream.Close();
        }
    }
    finally
    {
        if (this.Closable && (this.stream != null))
        {
            this.stream = null;
            this.encoding = null;
            this.decoder = null;
            this.byteBuffer = null;
            this.charBuffer = null;
            this.charPos = 0;
            this.charLen = 0;
            base.Dispose(disposing);
        }
    }
}