Simple Way To Structure Threads For Control

BackgroundI've previously discussed the differences between the BackgroundWorker and Thread classes, but I figured it would be useful to touch on some code. I'd like to share the pattern I commonly use when creating threads in C# and discuss some of the highlights.The Single ThreadI like to use this design when I have a single thread I need to run and in the context of my object responsible for running the thread, I do mean having a single thread. Of course, you could have your object in control of multiple threads as long as you repeat this design pattern for each of them.Here's the interface that I'll be using for all of the examples: internal interface IThreadRunner { #region Exposed Members void Start(); void Stop(); #endregion }Behold! internal class SingleThreadRunner : IThreadRunner { #region Fields private readonly object _threadLock; private…

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Thread vs BackgroundWorker

Background There are two classes available in the .NET framework that sometimes have some confusion around them: The Thread and the BackgroundWorker. They're both used to do some heavy lifting for you on a separate thread of execution (so you can keep on keepin' on), so why do we have two different things to accomplish the same end result   Enter The Thread Class The Thread class is available in the System.Threading namespace. Surprising, right? It's the basic unit for spawning off work to be done. Threads let you provide them with a name, which could be one advantage to using them. A thread can either operate as "background" which means it will be killed when the application exists, or not as background, which will actually keep the application alive until the thread is killed off. An instance of the…

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