When is ReaderWriterLockSlim better than a simple lock?

Question

I'm doing a very silly benchmark on the ReaderWriterLock with this code, where reading happens 4x more often than writting:

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        ISynchro[] test = { new Locked(), new RWLocked() };

        Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();

        foreach ( var isynchro in test )
        {
            sw.Reset();
            sw.Start();
            Thread w1 = new Thread( new ParameterizedThreadStart( WriteThread ) );
            w1.Start( isynchro );

            Thread w2 = new Thread( new ParameterizedThreadStart( WriteThread ) );
            w2.Start( isynchro );

            Thread r1 = new Thread( new ParameterizedThreadStart( ReadThread ) );
            r1.Start( isynchro );

            Thread r2 = new Thread( new ParameterizedThreadStart( ReadThread ) );
            r2.Start( isynchro );

            w1.Join();
            w2.Join();
            r1.Join();
            r2.Join();
            sw.Stop();

            Console.WriteLine( isynchro.ToString() + ": " + sw.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString() + "ms." );
        }

        Console.WriteLine( "End" );
        Console.ReadKey( true );
    }

    static void ReadThread(Object o)
    {
        ISynchro synchro = (ISynchro)o;

        for ( int i = 0; i < 500; i++ )
        {
            Int32? value = synchro.Get( i );
            Thread.Sleep( 50 );
        }
    }

    static void WriteThread( Object o )
    {
        ISynchro synchro = (ISynchro)o;

        for ( int i = 0; i < 125; i++ )
        {
            synchro.Add( i );
            Thread.Sleep( 200 );
        }
    }

}

interface ISynchro
{
    void Add( Int32 value );
    Int32? Get( Int32 index );
}

class Locked:List<Int32>, ISynchro
{
    readonly Object locker = new object();

    #region ISynchro Members

    public new void Add( int value )
    {
        lock ( locker ) 
            base.Add( value );
    }

    public int? Get( int index )
    {
        lock ( locker )
        {
            if ( this.Count <= index )
                return null;
            return this[ index ];
        }
    }

    #endregion
    public override string ToString()
    {
        return "Locked";
    }
}

class RWLocked : List<Int32>, ISynchro
{
    ReaderWriterLockSlim locker = new ReaderWriterLockSlim();

    #region ISynchro Members

    public new void Add( int value )
    {
        try
        {
            locker.EnterWriteLock();
            base.Add( value );
        }
        finally
        {
            locker.ExitWriteLock();
        }
    }

    public int? Get( int index )
    {
        try
        {
            locker.EnterReadLock();
            if ( this.Count <= index )
                return null;
            return this[ index ];
        }
        finally
        {
            locker.ExitReadLock();
        }
    }

    #endregion

    public override string ToString()
    {
        return "RW Locked";
    }
}

But I get that both perform in more or less the same way:

Locked: 25003ms.
RW Locked: 25002ms.
End

Even making the read 20 times more often that writes, the performance is still (almost) the same.

Am I doing something wrong here?

Kind regards.

Answer 1

In your example, the sleeps mean that generally there is no contention. An uncontended lock is very fast. For this to matter, you would need a contended lock; if there are writes in that contention, they should be about the same (lock may even be quicker) - but if it is mostly reads (with a write contention rarely), I would expect the ReaderWriterLockSlim lock to out-perform the lock.

Personally, I prefer another strategy here, using reference-swapping - so reads can always read without ever checking / locking / etc. Writes make their change to a cloned copy, then use Interlocked.CompareExchange to swap the reference (re-applying their change if another thread mutated the reference in the interim).