Destructors

Rashed Mohammad

14y2kVisual Basic .NET

Can anyone please tell me when/ why to use "Destructors" in C#? Pls give an easy example.

5 Replies

Know the answer? Post it — somebody with the same question will find it here.

Satyapriya Nayak14y ago
Accepted answer
Hi Rashed,

Destructors are used to destruct instances of classes.

When we are using destructors in C#, we have to keep in mind the following things:

A class can only have one destructor.
Destructors cannot be inherited or overloaded.
Destructors cannot be called. They are invoked automatically.
A destructor does not take modifiers or have parameters.

A destructor same name as the name of the class but it starts with the character ~
```
class Car
{
    ~ Car()  // destructor
    {
        // cleanup statements...
    }
}


Thanks
```
Sam Hobbs14y ago
I am not sure if "when/ why to use" means calling destructors or writing them. Since we can never call them, I will assume the question is asking when to write them.

I think the first thing that should be said about Destructors is that they are usually not needed. The most common use of destructors is to do cleanup of unmanaged objects. Managed objects in objects (classes and structs) that we define will do whatever cleanup that they need to do themselves and we do not need to do anything explicitly for the managed objects we use.
Vulpes14y ago
One of the best uses for a destructor is as insurance for failing to call the Dispose() method in a class which implements IDisposable.

The Dispose() method is used in such classes to clean up unmanaged resources as these will not be cleaned up by the garbage collector which can only deal with managed resources.

There is a pattern which you can implement whereby the destructor does the clean up if the Dispose() method has not already been called. Check the following link:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/b1yfkh5e.aspx
Rashed Mohammad14y ago
Thank you :)
14y ago
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/uploadfile/82b15a/constructors-and-destructors-in-C-Sharp-net/