Thursday, April 27, 2006

Stacking "using" blocks together

I had always been thinking of using the using-block to instantiate multiple disposable objects so I don't have to remember explicitly calling Close() or Dispose() on them:

            using (IDisposable one = new DisposableOne(), 
                   IDisposable two = new DisposableTwo())
            {
                // Compile time error
            }


But unfortunately C# does not support that. So as a work around, one would do these nested using statements to do the trick:

            using (IDisposable one = new DisposableOne())
            {
                using (IDisposable two = new DisposableTwo())
                {
                    // Ops. Code is now indented
                }
            }


But now, you have messed up your pretty-looking indentation of your code. Remember back in the acadamia your programming class instructor told you that all your if-else/for/while statements will work without curly brackets? Well, surprise, same case for using blocks:

            using (IDisposable one = new DisposableOne())
            using (IDisposable two = new DisposableTwo())
            {
                // This works!                
            }


Time to show off to your pairing friend you can write prettier code than him/her =D

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