in a "using" block is a SqlConnection closed on return or exception?

Question

First question:
Say I have

using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
{
    connection.Open();

    string storedProc = "GetData";
    SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand(storedProc, connection);
    command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
    command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@EmployeeID", employeeID));

    return (byte[])command.ExecuteScalar();
}

Does the connection get closed? Because technically we never get to the last } as we return before it.

Second question:
This time I have:

try
{
    using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
    {
        int employeeID = findEmployeeID();

        connection.Open();
        SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand("UpdateEmployeeTable", connection);
        command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
        command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@EmployeeID", employeeID));
        command.CommandTimeout = 5;

        command.ExecuteNonQuery();
    }
}
catch (Exception) { /*Handle error*/ }

Now, say somewhere in the try we get an error and it gets caught. Does the connection still get closed? Because again, we skip the rest of the code in the try and go directly to the catch statement.

Am I thinking too linearly in how using works? ie Does Dispose() simply get called when we leave the using scope?

Answer 1

1. Yes
2. Yes.

Either way, when the using block is exited (either by successful completion or by error) it is closed.

Although I think it would be better to organize like this because it's a lot easier to see what is going to happen, even for the new maintenance programmer who will support it later:

using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString)) 
{    
    int employeeID = findEmployeeID();    
    try    
    {
        connection.Open();
        SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand("UpdateEmployeeTable", connection);
        command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
        command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@EmployeeID", employeeID));
        command.CommandTimeout = 5;

        command.ExecuteNonQuery();    
    } 
    catch (Exception) 
    { 
        /*Handle error*/ 
    }
}