Question

I have a scenario where

• multiple threads are pushing data on a Queue

• only ONE thread is processing data using code below

code –

  while ( Continue )
  {
        while ( queue.Count > 0 )
        {
             MyObj o = queue.Dequeue();
             someProcess(o);
        }
        myAutoResetEvent.WaitOne();
  }

But sometimes, queue.Dequeue() returns null in the scenario above
What gives ?

Answer 1

You need to read this blog post.

Also, here’s a very minimal skeleton of a “channel” for communication between threads:

public class Channel<T>
{
    private readonly Queue<T> _queue = new Queue<T>();

    public void Enqueue(T item)
    {
        lock (_queue)
        {
            _queue.Enqueue(item);
            if (_queue.Count == 1)
                Monitor.PulseAll(_queue);
        }
    }

    public T Dequeue()
    {
        lock (_queue)
        {
            while (_queue.Count == 0)
                Monitor.Wait(_queue);

            return _queue.Dequeue();
        }
    }
}