In the Dispose(bool) method implementation, Shouldn't one set members to null?

Question

None of the guides/notes/articles that discuss IDisposable pattern suggest that one should set the internal members to null in the Dispose(bo

Answer 1

Maybe I'm missing your point, but once your object is disposed, the root or 'sub-root' it represented relative to it's members has been detached. It seems like you are thinking of garbage collection like a ref count system (which can be done, but ... usually isn't).

Instead, think of it as a many-rooted tree, where every object has branches for what it links to. At the end of the day the 'final roots' are statics and anything instantiated from a 'main' loop.

When the garbage collector runs, the easiest way to think about what it does is to consider that it will walk the list of 'real roots' and apply a 'color' to everything it can 'reach'.

Now, assumed the collector has access to 'everything', whether it was rooted or not. Anything not colored can be cleaned up.

Getting back to your original question, when your object is disposed, one assumes (or at least hopes) that no one references it anymore. If this is the case, it is no longer rooted, and so it will not contribute to 'coloring' anything it touches.

Long story longer - if nulling out members in a Dispose routine is fixing something - I would be you have a different, and real, problem that someone is holding a link to your disposed object, and keeping it 'reachable' when it should not be.

I apologize for what may be the most over-quote-filled message I've ever written, but I'm sort of abusing standard terms.