using statement for background worker

Question

I have been looking over several examples of backgroundworkers and I ran across code that looks similar to this

public class MyClass
{
  public MyClass()
  {
    using(BackgroundWorker _Worker = new BackgroundWorker { WorkerReportsProgress = true})
    {
      _Worker.DoWork += (s, args) =>
      {
        ...
      };
    }
    _Worker.RunWorkerAsync();
  }
}

I have not been using the "using" statment in my code like this. I ran across something similar while using the Code Rush trial, which made me come back to this code and question if i should be doing this or not. Please help me understand if/why this would be best practice. Thanks.

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 09 '11 at 17:19

Using the using keyword like that simply handles dispose for you. Without it, you'd be constantly writing try / catch / finally blocks in order to make sure objects implementing IDisposable were disposed properly.

Also note that you can put multiple declarations in a using statement, if you have multiple objects that need to be disposed:

using (Font font3 = new Font("Arial", 10.0f), 
           font4 = new Font("Arial", 10.0f))
{
    // Use font3 and font4.
}

Here's the MSDN documentation on it.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 09 '11 at 17:19

The using statement defines a scope that outside of which objects will be disposed. So it is just a convention by which the resources are disposed of automatically. From MSDN,

The using statement allows the programmer to specify when objects that use resources should release them. The object provided to the using statement must implement the IDisposable interface. This interface provides the Dispose method, which should release the object's resources.

It is perfectly acceptable in your scenario.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 09 '11 at 17:21

1

The using statement takes place of surrounding your code with a try/catch block. But not everything can use the using statement; only objects that implement Dispose() can.

answered Aug 09 '11 at 17:21

sithius92

136
4

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:47

1

Actually BackgroundWorker does not need to be disposed, see here. So there is no need to have the using clause

edited May 23 '17 at 11:47

Community

1
1

answered Aug 09 '11 at 17:21

thumbmunkeys

20,606
8
62
110

using statement for background worker

4 Answers4