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IComponent.dispose

Disposes of the component.

Syntax

public void dispose()

Remarks

A call to dispose indicates that the component is no longer needed. An implementation of dispose must do the following:

• Remove any references that the component is holding to other components. This is typically accomplished by assigning null to any fields that contain references to other components.
• Release any system resources that are associated with the component, such as file handles, window handles, or database connections.
• Dispose of any child components, such as child windows or submenu items, by calling the dispose method of these components. (A component is a child component if its getChildOf method returns true when passed this component.)
• Remove the component from its container. If the component has a site, it must execute the following:
  site.getContainer().removeComponent(this);
  where site is the current (non-null) site.
• Trigger a dispose event for any event handlers that have been registered through the addOnDispose method.

Ideally, a call to dispose will return a component to the state it was in immediately after it was created (this is not a requirement). Following a call to dispose, a component may raise exceptions for operations that cannot meaningfully be performed.