Question

You’ll appreciate the following two syntactic sugars:

lock(obj)
{
//Code
}

same as:

Monitor.Enter(obj)
try
{
//Code
}
finally
{
Monitor.Exit(obj)
}

and

using(var adapt = new adapter()){
//Code2
}

same as:

var adapt= new adapter()
try{
//Code2
}
finally{
adapt.Dispose()
}

Clearly the first example in each case is more readable. Is there a way to define this kind of thing myself, either in the C# language, or in the IDE? The reason I ask is that there are many similar usages (of the long kind) that would benefit from this, eg. if you’re using ReaderWriterLockSlim, you want something pretty similar.

EDIT 1:

I’ve been asked to provide an example, so I’ll give it a go:

myclass
{
ReaderWriterLockSlim rwl = new ReaderWriterLockSlim();

void MyConcurrentMethod()
{
  rwl.EnterReadLock();
  try{
    //Code to do in the lock, often just one line, but now its turned into 8!
  }
  finally
  {
    rwl.ExitReadLock();
  }
}
}

//I'd rather have:
void MyConcurrentMethod()
{
rwl.EnterReadLock()
{
   //Code block. Or even simpler, no brackets like one-line ifs and usings
}
}

Of course you’d have to give some thoughts as to how to use the TryEnterReadLocks and those kinds of things with returns. But I’m sure you could think of something.

Answer 1

Not exactly, but you can use an action delegate to get something close:

void MyBrace(Action doSomething)
{      
     try
     {
        //wait for lock first

        doSomething();
     }
     finally
     {
         //special cleanup
     }
}

And use it like this:

MyBrace(() => 
{
   //your code goes here, but won't run until the lock is obtained
});  // cleanup will always run, even if your code throws an exception

Note that there are some limitations with this. You can’t have a meaningful return statement inside the new braces, for example. Thanks to closures you will at least still be able to use local variables.