Right way to dispose Image/Bitmap and PictureBox
I don't think there is a real memory leak. The problem is that you don't dispose the old bitmap, it is up to the GC to clean the stuff. But there is no deterministic way to say when this will happen.
So i think if you're going to loop through a lot of pictures, you'll see some memory increase and at some other point it will fall down or resist at one position.
I didn't test it, but maybe this will help a little to make it more deterministic:
public void Draw() {
Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(240,320);
using(var g = Graphics.FromImage(bmp))
using(var solidBrush = SolidBrush(Color.Black))
{
// draw something with Graphics here.
g.Clear(Color.Black);
g.DrawImage(Images.CloseIcon, 16, 48);
g.DrawImage(Images.RefreshIcon, 46, 48);
g.FillRectangle(solidBrush, 0, 100, 240, 103);
//Backup old image in pictureBox
var oldImage = pictureBox.Image;
pictureBox.Image = bmp;
//Release resources from old image
if(oldImage != null)
((IDisposable)oldImage).Dispose();
}
}
Update
And another idea inspired by jack30lena:
public static Bitmap LoadBitmap(string path)
{
//Open file in read only mode
using (FileStream stream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
//Get a binary reader for the file stream
using (BinaryReader reader = new BinaryReader(stream))
{
//copy the content of the file into a memory stream
var memoryStream = new MemoryStream(reader.ReadBytes((int)stream.Length));
//make a new Bitmap object the owner of the MemoryStream
return new Bitmap(memoryStream);
}
}
The idea behind my second code sample is to get rid of the file handle and copy the file content into memory. Afterwards the Bitmap will taken ownership of the MemoryStream which will be disposed within my first sample by calling the oldImage.Dispose()
.
By using this approach there should never be more then two images in memory, thous leading only to OutOfMemoryExceptions by really big pictures or small amount of RAM.
1: I dont know if it works in Windows Mobile but try this:
FileStream bitmapFile = new FileStream("mybitmap.bmp", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite);
Image loaded = new Bitmap(bitmapFile);
2: The SolidBrush
must be disposed. There is a general rule for dispose. --> "every object, instanciated by you, that implements dispose must be disposed manually, exept when the object is a return/ref/out value"
In this case it is better to use a using
statement
using (new objecttodispose){ ..... }
The using
statement will ensure the call of Dispose()
in any case (exception for example).
3: Dispose()
will free the bitmap ressources.