AutoResetEvent Reset immediately after Set

Question

Consider the following pattern:

private AutoResetEvent signal = new AutoResetEvent(false);

private void Work()
{
    while (true)
    {
        Thread.Sleep(5000);
        signal.Set();
        //has a waiting thread definitely been signaled by now?
        signal.Reset();
    }
}

public void WaitForNextEvent()
{
    signal.WaitOne();
}

The purpose of this pattern is to allow external consumers to wait for a certain event (e.g. - a message arriving). WaitForNextEvent is not called from within the class.

To give an example that should be familiar, consider System.Diagnostics.Process. It exposes an Exited event, but it also exposes a WaitForExit method, which allows the caller to wait synchronously until the process exits. this is what I am trying to achieve here.

The reason I need signal.Reset() is that if a thread calls WaitForNextEvent after signal.Set() has already been called (or in other words, if .Set was called when no threads were waiting), it returns immediately, as the event has already been previously signaled.

The question

• Is it guaranteed that a thread calling WaitForNextEvent() will be signaled before signal.Reset() is called? If not, what are other solutions for implementing a WaitFor method?

Answer 1

Instead of using AutoResetEvent or ManualResetEvent, use this:

public sealed class Signaller
{
    public void PulseAll()
    {
        lock (_lock)
        {
            Monitor.PulseAll(_lock);
        }
    }

    public void Pulse()
    {
        lock (_lock)
        {
            Monitor.Pulse(_lock);
        }
    }

    public void Wait()
    {
        Wait(Timeout.Infinite);
    }

    public bool Wait(int timeoutMilliseconds)
    {
        lock (_lock)
        {
            return Monitor.Wait(_lock, timeoutMilliseconds);
        }
    }

    private readonly object _lock = new object();
}

Then change your code like so:

private Signaller signal = new Signaller();

private void Work()
{
    while (true)
    {
        Thread.Sleep(5000);
        signal.Pulse(); // Or signal.PulseAll() to signal ALL waiting threads.
    }
}

public void WaitForNextEvent()
{
    signal.Wait();
}