Do HttpClient and HttpClientHandler have to be disposed between requests?

Question

System.Net.Http.HttpClient and System.Net.Http.HttpClientHandler in .NET Framework 4.5 implement IDisposable (via System.Net.Http.HttpMessageInvoker).

The usin

Answer 1

In my case, I was creating an HttpClient inside a method that actually did the service call. Something like:

public void DoServiceCall() {
  var client = new HttpClient();
  await client.PostAsync();
}

In an Azure worker role, after repeatedly calling this method (without disposing the HttpClient), it would eventually fail with SocketException (connection attempt failed).

I made the HttpClient an instance variable (disposing it at the class level) and the issue went away. So I would say, yes, dispose the HttpClient, assuming its safe (you don't have outstanding async calls) to do so.