Are my connections being returned to the pool if I don't Dispose my IDataReader?

Question

I'm trying to determine if there are glaring errors in a code base, or not.

The code in question calls a third party dll which returns an IDataReader. If the code uses the reader without disposing of it, it won't be explicitly returned to the pool, correct?

Here's the calling code:

IDataReader rdr = db.ExecSPGetDataReader("dbo.someStoredProcedure", paramList);
if (rdr.Read())
{
    List<nameValuePair> formValues = Utils.nameValuePairs(rdr["valuepairs"].ToString());
    foreach (nameValuePair nvp in formValues)
    {
        if (nvp.name.ToLower() == "name")
        {
            outString = nvp.value;
            break;
        }
    }
}

Here's the decompiled third party dll code:

    public IDataReader ExecSPGetDataReader(string sp, List<param> paramList)
    {
        IDataReader dataReader;
        using (DbCommand dbC = this.setDBCommand(sp, paramList, true))
        {
            IDataReader dr = this._db.ExecuteReader(dbC);
            this.setOutputParams(dbC, paramList);
            dataReader = dr;
        }
        return dataReader;
    }

It looks like the command gets disposed of, probably for the purpose of disposing the connection, but if that's true, how can anything be read from the returned IDataReader?

Answer 1

If the code uses the reader without disposing of it, it won't be explicitly returned to the pool, correct?

That is correct. Change the code to this:

using (IDataReader rdr =
    db.ExecSPGetDataReader("dbo.someStoredProcedure", paramList))
{
    if (rdr.Read())
    {
        List<nameValuePair> formValues =
            Utils.nameValuePairs(rdr["valuepairs"].ToString());
        foreach (nameValuePair nvp in formValues)
        {
            if (nvp.name.ToLower() == "name")
            {
                outString = nvp.value;
                break;
            }
        }
    }
}

The using statement will ensure that Dispose is called.