Is there any benefit to implementing IDisposable on classes which do not have resources?

Solution 1:

There are only 2 reasons for implementing IDisposable on a type

• The type contains native resources which must be freed when the type is no longer used
• The type contains fields of type IDisposable

If neither of these are true then don't implement IDisposable

EDIT

Several people have mentioned that IDisposable is a nice way to implement begin / end or bookended operations. While that's not the original intent of IDisposable it does provide for a very nice pattern.

class Operation {
  class Helper : IDisposable {
    internal Operation Operation;
    public void Dispose() {
      Operation.EndOperation();
    }
  }
  public IDisposable BeginOperation() {
    ...
    return new Helper() { Operation = this };
  }
  private void EndOperation() {
    ...
  }
}

Note: Another interesting way to implement this pattern is with lambdas. Instead of giving an IDisposable back to the user and hoping they don't forget to call Dispose have them give you a lambda in which they can execute the operation and you close out the operation

public void BeginOperation(Action action) {
  BeginOperationCore();
  try {
    action();
  } finally {
    EndOperation();
  }
}

Solution 2:

There won't be a scrap of difference between the disposable and non-disposable version if you don't explicitly make use of the Dispose() method.

Solution 3:

While your code wouldn't benefit from implementing IDisposable, I can't agree with other opinions here that state that IDisposable is only meant to (directly or indirectly) free native resources. IDisposable can be used whenever the object needs to perform clean up task at the end of it's lifetime span. It's extremely useful together with using.

A very popular example: in ASP.NET MVC Html.BeginForm returns an IDisposable. On creation, the object opens the tag, when Dispose is called it closes it. No native resources involved, yet still a good use of IDisposable.

Solution 4:

No, there will be no benefit if you don't do something useful like releasing unmanaged resources that your class might hold in the Dispose method.