The using statment

Reference : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-IN/library/yh598w02.aspx

The following example shows how to use the using statement.

using (Font font1 = new Font("Arial", 10.0f)) 

{

    byte charset = font1.GdiCharSet;

}

File and Font are examples of managed types that access unmanaged resources (in this case file handles and device contexts). There are many other kinds of unmanaged resources and class library types that encapsulate them. All such types must implement the IDisposable interface.

As a rule, when you use an IDisposable object, you should declare and instantiate it in a using statement. Theusing statement calls the Dispose method on the object in the correct way, and (when you use it as shown earlier) it also causes the object itself to go out of scope as soon as Dispose is called. Within the using block, the object is read-only and cannot be modified or reassigned.

The using statement ensures that Dispose is called even if an exception occurs while you are calling methods on the object. You can achieve the same result by putting the object inside a try block and then calling Dispose in a finally block; in fact, this is how the using statement is translated by the compiler. The code example earlier expands to the following code at compile time (note the extra curly braces to create the limited scope for the object):

{

  Font font1 = new Font("Arial", 10.0f);

  try

  {

    byte charset = font1.GdiCharSet;

  }

  finally

  {

    if (font1 != null)

      ((IDisposable)font1).Dispose();

  }

}