Question

Is there any way to get a delegate to run on a specific thread?

Say I have:

CustomDelegate del = someObject.someFunction;
Thread dedicatedThread = ThreadList[x];

Can I have a consistent background long running thread and invoke my own delegates on it whenever I need it. It has to be the same thread each time.

[Edit]

The reason why I want it to be on a dedicated thread is time is that I inten to run the delegate on it and suspend the thread after y milliseconds, and resume the thread when I run another delegate on it. I see this isn’t possible. I will have a delegate queue and let the main function of the thread read and run from it.

To clarify with a concrete example, I have a game system with a bunch of player threads. I would like each playerthread to run event handlers for game events on it. If the event handlers take too much time I would like to be able to pause that particular player until the next event by suspending its thread.

Thus having a dedicated thread on which I can run multiple event handlers I can pause a particular player’s AI in case it became bugged or is taking too long.

Answer 1

I think the best solution is to use Task objects and queue them to an StaThreadScheduler running a single thread.

Alternatively, you could use the ActionThread in Nito.Async to create a normal thread with a built-in queue of Action delegates.

However, neither of these will directly address another need: the ability to "pause" one action and continue with another one. To do this, you’d need to sprinkle "synchronization points" throughout every action and have a way to save its state, re-queue it, and continue with the next action.

All that complexity is very nearly approaching a thread scheduling system, so I recommend taking a step back and doing more of a re-design. You could allow each action to be queued to the ThreadPool (I recommend just having each one be a Task object). You’ll still need to sprinkle "synchronization points", but instead of saving state and re-queueing them, you’ll just need to pause (block) them.