Which is better, and when: using statement or calling Dispose() on an IDisposable in C#?

Question

Suppose I have the following:

using(var ctx = DataContextFactory.Create(0))
{ ... Some code ... }

Why not just do the following and lose a

Answer 1

A using statement is always better because...

• you can't forget to call Dispose(), even as the code evolves into different code paths
• Dispose() gets called even if there's an exception. It also checks for null before calling Dispose(), which may be useful (assuming you're not just calling new).

One non-obvious (to me, anyway) trick with using is how you can avoid excessive nesting when you have multiple disposable objects:

using (var input = new InputFile(inputName))
using (var output = new OutputFile(outputName))
{
    input.copyTo(output);
}

The VS code formatter will leave the two statements starting in the same column.

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In fact, in some situations you don't even have to repeat the using statement...

using (InputFile input1 = new InputFile(inputName1), input2 = new InputFile(inputName2))

However, the restrictions for declaring multiple variables on the same line applies here so the types must be the same and you cannot use the implicit type var.