C# Events and Thread Safety

Question

UPDATE

As of C# 6, the answer to this question is:

SomeEvent?.Invoke(this, e);

---

I frequently hear/read the fo

Answer 1

Thanks for a useful discussion. I was working on this problem recently and made the following class which is a bit slower, but allows to avoid callings to disposed objects.

The main point here is that invocation list can be modified even event is raised.

/// 

/// Thread safe event invoker
/// 
public sealed class ThreadSafeEventInvoker
{
    /// 

    /// Dictionary of delegates
    /// 
    readonly ConcurrentDictionary delegates = new ConcurrentDictionary();

    /// 

    /// List of delegates to be called, we need it because it is relatevely easy to implement a loop with list
    /// modification inside of it
    /// 
    readonly LinkedList delegatesList = new LinkedList();

    /// 

    /// locker for delegates list
    /// 
    private readonly ReaderWriterLockSlim listLocker = new ReaderWriterLockSlim();

    /// 

    /// Add delegate to list
    /// 
    /// 
    public void Add(Delegate value)
    {
        var holder = new DelegateHolder(value);
        if (!delegates.TryAdd(value, holder)) return;

        listLocker.EnterWriteLock();
        delegatesList.AddLast(holder);
        listLocker.ExitWriteLock();
    }

    /// 

    /// Remove delegate from list
    /// 
    /// 
    public void Remove(Delegate value)
    {
        DelegateHolder holder;
        if (!delegates.TryRemove(value, out holder)) return;

        Monitor.Enter(holder);
        holder.IsDeleted = true;
        Monitor.Exit(holder);
    }

    /// 

    /// Raise an event
    /// 
    /// 
    public void Raise(params object[] args)
    {
        DelegateHolder holder = null;

        try
        {
            // get root element
            listLocker.EnterReadLock();
            var cursor = delegatesList.First;
            listLocker.ExitReadLock();

            while (cursor != null)
            {
                // get its value and a next node
                listLocker.EnterReadLock();
                holder = cursor.Value;
                var next = cursor.Next;
                listLocker.ExitReadLock();

                // lock holder and invoke if it is not removed
                Monitor.Enter(holder);
                if (!holder.IsDeleted)
                    holder.Action.DynamicInvoke(args);
                else if (!holder.IsDeletedFromList)
                {
                    listLocker.EnterWriteLock();
                    delegatesList.Remove(cursor);
                    holder.IsDeletedFromList = true;
                    listLocker.ExitWriteLock();
                }
                Monitor.Exit(holder);

                cursor = next;
            }
        }
        catch
        {
            // clean up
            if (listLocker.IsReadLockHeld)
                listLocker.ExitReadLock();
            if (listLocker.IsWriteLockHeld)
                listLocker.ExitWriteLock();
            if (holder != null && Monitor.IsEntered(holder))
                Monitor.Exit(holder);

            throw;
        }
    }

    /// 

    /// helper class
    /// 
    class DelegateHolder
    {
        /// 

        /// delegate to call
        /// 
        public Delegate Action { get; private set; }

        /// 

        /// flag shows if this delegate removed from list of calls
        /// 
        public bool IsDeleted { get; set; }

        /// 

        /// flag shows if this instance was removed from all lists
        /// 
        public bool IsDeletedFromList { get; set; }

        /// 

        /// Constuctor
        /// 
        /// 
        public DelegateHolder(Delegate d)
        {
            Action = d;
        }
    }
}

And the usage is:

    private readonly ThreadSafeEventInvoker someEventWrapper = new ThreadSafeEventInvoker();
    public event Action SomeEvent
    {
        add { someEventWrapper.Add(value); }
        remove { someEventWrapper.Remove(value); }
    }

    public void RaiseSomeEvent()
    {
        someEventWrapper.Raise();
    }

Test

I tested it in the following manner. I have a thread which creates and destroys objects like this:

var objects = Enumerable.Range(0, 1000).Select(x => new Bar(foo)).ToList();
Thread.Sleep(10);
objects.ForEach(x => x.Dispose());

In a Bar (a listener object) constructor I subscribe to SomeEvent (which is implemented as shown above) and unsubscribe in Dispose:

    public Bar(Foo foo)
    {
        this.foo = foo;
        foo.SomeEvent += Handler;
    }

    public void Handler()
    {
        if (disposed)
            Console.WriteLine("Handler is called after object was disposed!");
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        foo.SomeEvent -= Handler;
        disposed = true;
    }

Also I have couple of threads which raise event in a loop.

All these actions are performed simultaneously: many listeners are created and destroyed and event is being fired at the same time.

If there were a race conditions I should see a message in a console, but it is empty. But if I use clr events as usual I see it full of warning messages. So, I can conclude that it is possible to implement a thread safe events in c#.

What do you think?