Hello,

some classes implement a Close method instead of a Dispose method because it
fits better to the object being represented. In most cases, these classes
explicitly implement IDisposable. Explicitly means that you have to cast the
instance to IDisposable to get access to the Dispose method itself. The
Close method usually calls the Dispose method internally (or vice versa).

Kind regards,
Henning Krause

The Dispose method is used to tell the object to clean up everything as
it's not going to be used any more. Once Dispose has been called, the
object should not be possible to reuse.

The Close method on the other hand doesn't have to make the object
unusable. Depending on what's appropriate for the class, it may be
possible to reopen the object to reuse it.

A good example of the difference is the SqlConnection class.  This class has
both a Close and a Dispose.    The close only closes the connection and
affects nothing else in the class.  THe dispose method actually calls the
close method automatically and also cleans up any other resources used by
the class.  If a class has a Dispose method it is recommended to call it
when you are done with the object.

Thanks,
James Jardine

In most cases classes that have a Close method implement IDisposable
explicitly.  In those cases there is no difference between calling close or
Dispose.  For example the following two code snippets are identical:

string fileContents = null;
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader("MyFile")
{
 fileContents = reader.ReadToEnd();
}

string fileContents = null;
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader("MyFile");
try
{
 fileContents = reader.ReadToEnd();
}
finally
{
 fileContents.Close();
}

In the first snippet I used a using statement which will call Dispose on the
StreamReader, and in the second snippet I used a try finally and called Close
in the try finally; since StreamReader's Dispose just calls its Close method
there are no differences in the code.

Thanks all!
Bhuwan

A framework person once told me it was just history and timing. A lot of
classes were already coded using Close methods before the IDisposable model
became the standard. That implies you shouldn't see Close() on any new
classes.