Question

I have some unsolved issue with threads. It’s my first time doing it. I know how to use one thread to write in a textBox, but I have no idea how to use two of them to do the job. Anyone have a clue what do I have to do to be able to use two threads to write to the same textBox, but not in the same time. Thank you.

Answer 1

Here’s an example that uses two threads to write random numbers to a multi-line text box. As Brandon and Jon B noted, you need to use Invoke() to serialize the calls to the GUI thread.

public partial class Form1 : Form
{
    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    Random m_random = new Random((int)DateTime.Now.Ticks);
    ManualResetEvent m_stopThreadsEvent = new ManualResetEvent(false);

    private void buttonStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        Thread t1 = new Thread(new ThreadStart(ThreadOne));
        Thread t2 = new Thread(new ThreadStart(ThreadTwo));

        t1.Start();
        t2.Start();
    }

    private void ThreadOne()
    {
        for(;;)
        {
            int n = m_random.Next(1000);
            AppendText(String.Format("One: {0}\r\n", n));
            if(m_stopThreadsEvent.WaitOne(n))
            {
                break;
            }
        }
    }

    private void ThreadTwo()
    {
        for(;;)
        {
            int n = m_random.Next(1000);
            AppendText(String.Format("Two: {0}\r\n", n));
            if(m_stopThreadsEvent.WaitOne(n))
            {
                break;
            }
        }
    }

    delegate void AppendTextDelegate(string text);

    private void AppendText(string text)
    {
        if(textBoxLog.InvokeRequired)
        {
            textBoxLog.Invoke(new AppendTextDelegate(this.AppendText), new object[] { text });
        }
        else
        {
            textBoxLog.Text = textBoxLog.Text += text;
        }
    }

    private void Form1_FormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
    {
        m_stopThreadsEvent.Set();
    }
}