Destructor in C#

In C#, a destructor is a special method that is called when an object is being destroyed or garbage collected by the runtime. The purpose of a destructor is to release any resources that were acquired by the object during its lifetime.

Here’s an example of a class with a destructor in C#:

class MyClass
{
    private IntPtr resource; // resource that needs to be released
    
    public MyClass()
    {
        resource = AcquireResource(); // acquire the resource
    }
    
    ~MyClass()
    {
        ReleaseResource(resource); // release the resource
    }
    
    private IntPtr AcquireResource()
    {
        // code to acquire the resource goes here
        return new IntPtr();
    }
    
    private void ReleaseResource(IntPtr ptr)
    {
        // code to release the resource goes here
    }
}

In this example, the MyClass class has a private IntPtr field called resource which holds a resource that needs to be released. The MyClass constructor acquires the resource by calling the AcquireResource method. The destructor of MyClass releases the resource by calling the ReleaseResource method.

When an instance of MyClass is created, the constructor acquires the resource. When the instance is no longer needed and is garbage collected by the runtime, the destructor is called to release the resource.

It’s important to note that in C#, the destructor is not guaranteed to be called immediately when the object goes out of scope or when the Dispose method is called. The destructor is called by the garbage collector at some point in the future when it decides to collect the object. Therefore, it’s a good practice to implement the IDisposable interface and use the Dispose method to release any resources that are no longer needed.