Question

How can I replace this code:

try
{
    lock (lockForSomethingInUse)
    {
        somethingInUse = true;
        // use it
    }
}
finally
{
    somethingInUse = false;
}

With:

using (lockForSomething)
{
   // use it
}

Answer 1

If you want to use lock and be able to know whether lock is actually acquired at the moment with using only one statement/variable, you can try using following classes. They won’t win you any awards for readability, but they allow you to use using for locking as you wanted.

class DisposableLock
{
    public bool IsAcquired { get; set; }

    class Handle : IDisposable
    {
        private DisposableLock parent;

        public void Dispose()
        {
            parent.IsAcquired = false;
            Monitor.Exit(parent);
        }
    }

    public IDisposable Acquire()
    {
        var handle = new Handle();
        handle.parent = this;
        handle.parent.IsAcquired = true;
        Monitor.Enter(this);
        return handle;
    }
}

The usage:

DisposableLock lockForSomething = new DisposableLock();
// ...

using (lockForSomething.Acquire())
{
// do something
}

You can then use lockForSomething.IsAcquired in some other place to check if resource is being used. The inner class implementing IDisposable is to make sure you won’t by accident use using (lockForSomething).