Should Dispose methods be unit tested?

Question

I am using C#. Is it advised to unit test dispose methods? If so why, and how should one test these methods?

Answer 1

Big yes - if your situation requires you to implement a Dispose function - you better make sure it does what you think!

For example, we have classes that coordinate database tasks (think SSIS packages, but with SqlConnection and SqlCommand and SqlBulkCopy etc.).

If I don't properly implement my Dispose, I could have an uncommitted SqlTransaction, or dangling SqlConnection. This would be VERY bad if I were running multiple instances of these database tasks in series.