Confused about Finalizer....

Question

Hi I have a class  WaveHdr. This class implements IDisposable. I also have a Finalizer for the class ~WaveHdr. The Finalizer calls the Dispose method. Also withing the class there is a method called read. In this method I allocate on the heap an byte array as a local variable. The read method is called many many times. Here is what I am observing... The finalizer for the class is called as many times as I have allocated the byte array in the read method. Also the finalizer is invoked before I am done with the class. It looks like the finalizer is called when the byte array (local variable in the read method) turns into garbage. My question is  why does the finalizer for the CLASS get called when the bytes array turns into garbage? I was expecting that the finalizer for the CLASS would not be called until the class instance itself turned into garbage? Would greatly appreciate some insight on this. Thanks.

bilnaad · Answer

I believe the destructor(~) is only called when the GarbageCollector thinks the object should be destroyed. But that isn't just when there are no references left to the object. But when memory becomes a problem. Or sometimes in an earlier stage. The Dispose() method needs to be called manually or is automaticly called when the object is used in a using() statement. So I think you should not use the destructor but just stick with the Dispose() method.