Creating a disposable that another class uses

Question

I have a connection class that is disposable

public class Connection : IDisposable { ... }

and a class that has a dependency on it

public class UsesConnection : IDisposable {
  UsesConnection (Connection c) {...}
  public void Dispose() {
    c.Dispose();
    ...
  }
  ...
}

How do I create and return a UsesConnection class without getting a CA2000 error?

The following code gets a CA2000 error on the line c = new Connection();

Connection c = null;
UsesConnection u = null;
try {
  c = new Connection()
  u = new UsesConnection(c);
  return u;
} catch {
  if (u != null) u.Dispose();
  else if (c != null) c.Dispose();
  throw;
}

Answer 1

Use a using block instead.

using (var c = new Connection())
using (var u = new UsesConnection(c))
{
   // Do your work here
}

But don't return as that will dispose both objects. Don't let UsesConnection to dispose Connection.

You should be in charge of maintaining the life-cycles of your disposable references, not some caller - ask yourself "what if they never dispose of my object?"