What does ----s mean in the context of StringBuilder.ToString()?

Question

The Reference Source page for stringbuilder.cs has this comment in the ToString method:

if (chunk.m_ChunkLength > 0)
{
    // Copy these into local variables so that they 
    // are stable even in the presence of ----s (hackers might do this)
    char[] sourceArray = chunk.m_ChunkChars;
    int chunkOffset = chunk.m_ChunkOffset;
    int chunkLength = chunk.m_ChunkLength;

What does this mean? Is ----s something a malicious user might insert into a string to be formatted?

Answer 1

In the CoreCLR repository you have a fuller quote:

Copy these into local variables so that they are stable even in the presence of race conditions

Github

Basically: it's a threading consideration.