I’ve got a .NET application that needs to call a COM object (it always has to be called from the same thread). As I have multiple threads in the application, I need to invoke an action on another thread.
The application does not have a (standard) message loop and I don’t really like the idea to add WPF / WinForms just to have a Dispatcher
.
What would be a safe and effective way to implement a custom "message loop" / queue that allows invoking an Action
/ Func
(with return type) on another thread?
It would also be nice to have a cross-platform solution for this problem.
Based on the information of @theodor-zoulias, I came up with this solution.
Disclaimer: Might be that this is actually a very bad design!
public sealed class DispatcherLoop : IDisposable
{
#region Instance
private DispatcherLoop() { }
static Dictionary<int, DispatcherLoop> dispatcherLoops = new();
public static DispatcherLoop Current
{
get
{
int threadId = Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId;
if (dispatcherLoops.ContainsKey(threadId))
return dispatcherLoops[threadId];
DispatcherLoop dispatcherLoop = new()
{
ThreadId = Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId
};
dispatcherLoops.Add(threadId, dispatcherLoop);
return dispatcherLoop;
}
}
#endregion
bool isDisposed = false;
public void Dispose()
{
if (isDisposed)
throw new ObjectDisposedException(null);
_queue.CompleteAdding();
_queue.Dispose();
dispatcherLoops.Remove(ThreadId);
isDisposed = true;
}
public int ThreadId { get; private set; } = -1;
public bool IsRunning { get; private set; } = false;
BlockingCollection<Task> _queue = new();
public void Run()
{
if (isDisposed)
throw new ObjectDisposedException(null);
if (ThreadId != Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId)
throw new InvalidOperationException($"The {nameof(DispatcherLoop)} has been created for a different thread!");
if (IsRunning)
throw new InvalidOperationException("Already running!");
IsRunning = true;
try
{
// ToDo: `RunSynchronously` is not guaranteed to be executed on this thread (see comments below)!
foreach (var task in _queue.GetConsumingEnumerable())
task?.RunSynchronously();
}
catch (ObjectDisposedException) { }
IsRunning = false;
}
public void BeginInvoke(Task task)
{
if (isDisposed)
throw new ObjectDisposedException(null);
if (!IsRunning)
throw new InvalidOperationException("Not running!");
if (ThreadId == Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId)
task?.RunSynchronously();
else
_queue.Add(task);
}
public void Invoke(Action action)
{
if (isDisposed)
throw new ObjectDisposedException(null);
Task task = new(action);
BeginInvoke(task);
task.GetAwaiter().GetResult();
}
public T Invoke<T>(Func<T> action)
{
if (isDisposed)
throw new ObjectDisposedException(null);
Task<T> task = new(action);
BeginInvoke(task);
return task.GetAwaiter().GetResult();
}
}