What's the purpose of GC.SuppressFinalize(this) in Dispose() method?

Question

I have the following code:

public void Dispose()
{
    if (_instance != null)
    {
        _instance = null;
        // Call GC.SupressFinalize to take this         


        

Answer 1

When implementing the dispose pattern you might also add a finalizer to your class that calls Dispose(). This is to make sure that Dispose() always gets called, even if a client forgets to call it.

To prevent the dispose method from running twice (in case the object already has been disposed) you add GC.SuppressFinalize(this);. The documentation provides a sample:

class MyResource : IDisposable
{
    [...]

    // This destructor will run only if the Dispose method 
    // does not get called.
    ~MyResource()      
    {
        // Do not re-create Dispose clean-up code here.
        // Calling Dispose(false) is optimal in terms of
        // readability and maintainability.
        Dispose(false);
    }

    // Implement IDisposable.
    // Do not make this method virtual.
    // A derived class should not be able to override this method.
    public void Dispose()
    {
        Dispose(true);
        // This object will be cleaned up by the Dispose method.
        // Therefore, you should call GC.SupressFinalize to
        // take this object off the finalization queue 
        // and prevent finalization code for this object
        // from executing a second time.
        GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
    }

    private void Dispose(bool disposing)
    {
        // Check to see if Dispose has already been called.
        if(!this.disposed)
        {
            // If disposing equals true, dispose all managed 
            // and unmanaged resources.
            if(disposing)
            {
                // Dispose managed resources.
                component.Dispose();
            }

            // Call the appropriate methods to clean up 
            // unmanaged resources here.
            resource.Cleanup()          
        }
        disposed = true;         
    }
}