What purpose has the method IStreamProvider.ReleaseStream?

Question

The interface System.Xml.IStreamProvider has two methods:

• GetStream (MSDN: This method can be used to return the stream to be written)
• ReleaseStream (MSDN: Releases a stream to output)

I understand the purpose of the GetStream method but I don't understand what to do with ReleaseStream. Am I supposed to call Dispose() inside ReleaseStream ?

Answer 1

There are two internal types in the .NET Framework that I know of that implements this interface - ByteStreamStreamProvider and OperationStreamProvider in the System.ServiceModel namespace. Neither of them do anything in the ReleaseStream method. It's implemented like this in both cases:

public void ReleaseStream(Stream stream)
{
    //Noop
}

So depending on your implementation you don't have to do anything.