Question

I want to perform several tasks (Disk IO on Remote Shares) at the same time. I do not want to block the UI. I think I need to create a custom class that does the following…

• Accepts and queues a request (using a Stack)
• Checks the thread pool and if a thread is available starts it with the requested info
• As each thread completes check the stack for pending requests…

Is there a better way to do this?

Is there a class already available for this?

Should I use a pool of the BackgroundWorker class or something else?

Will I have to implement the BackgroundWorker class in a custom class so that I can create multiple threads?

I want to create up to 8 threads for deleting files and folders. I need to query the number of items on the stack for updating the UI.

I currently have the code working with a single BackgroundWorker thread to delete the files and folders (which keeps the UI from locking, but it takes so long I tend to run several of the utilities at the same time).

Thanks,
Lee

Answer 1

If you’re using .NET 4, then the Task Parallel Library looks like exactly what you need. Reference on MSDN is here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd460717.aspx .

Specifically, the example at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd537608.aspx suggests replacing

foreach (var item in sourceCollection)
{
    Process(item);
}

with

Parallel.ForEach(sourceCollection, item => Process(item));

Just be wary of deadlocks in your code; in paricular, test extensively, as there can be strange things that happen sometimes in the depths of the Windows networking stack.