Question

Let’s say that I have a dictionary of controls and strings. If I run a background worker, is it thread safe to use the control reference to access the string corresponding to the control?

Dictionary<Control, string> _ctlDict;
//Called in the main thread
public void Persist()
{
  foreach (var control in Controls)
  {
    _ctlDict.Add(control, control.Name);
  }
}

//Called in the background worker
public string GetControlName(Control ctl)
{
  return _ctlDict[ctl];
}

This should be OK because I am not using any of the controls’ properties – I am just using the control’s reference, right?

Answer 1

As long as you don’t access properties or methods of the control, yes, it’s perfectly safe. It’s just an object reference, the fact that it points to a control doesn’t matter…