Thread synchronization.

[Blake]

Heya Group.

I am hoping that someone can help me understand how to use Synclock
properly. I am a tad confused. I have a class that is instanced on
multple threadpool threads, and uses shared members to track the state
shared by all instances.

The web is littered with examples of people using ...

Synclock GetType(MyClass)
' Do something to shared class members.
End Synclock

.... to access static members when many threads may own instances of the
class.

I understand that is dangerous because the type object may be locked
from outside the object causing deadlocks, and I am led to believe that
a private locking object is the way to go.

So should I do something like this;

Private Shared _lockObject As Object
....
Synclock _lockObject
' Do something to shared class members.
End Synclock

Or should I be locking on a type rather than an instance?

Thanks.

 

[Tom Shelton]

Heya Group.

I am hoping that someone can help me understand how to use Synclock
properly. I am a tad confused. I have a class that is instanced on
multple threadpool threads, and uses shared members to track the state
shared by all instances.

The web is littered with examples of people using ...

Synclock GetType(MyClass)
' Do something to shared class members.
End Synclock

... to access static members when many threads may own instances of the
class.

I understand that is dangerous because the type object may be locked
from outside the object causing deadlocks, and I am led to believe that
a private locking object is the way to go.

So should I do something like this;

One correction, make sure initialize the instance

Private Shared _lockObject As New Object
^^^^

...
Synclock _lockObject
' Do something to shared class members.
End Synclock

Or should I be locking on a type rather than an instance?

Thanks.

Look on a private shared object that you create (your second exampl) -
never lock on the type. That is a result of some bad MSDN examples...