Why doesn't C# allow a null value to be locked?

Question

C# doesn't allow locking on a null value. I suppose I could check whether the value is null or not before I lock it, but because I haven't locked it another thread could come along and make the value null! How can I avoid this race condition?

Answer 1

Lock on a value that is never null, e.g.

Object _lockOnMe = new Object();
Object _iMightBeNull;
public void DoSomeKungFu() {
    if (_iMightBeNull == null) {
        lock (_lockOnMe) {
            if (_iMightBeNull == null) {
                _iMightBeNull = ...  whatever ...;
            }
        }
    }
}

Also be careful to avoid this interesting race condition with double-checked locking: Memory Model Guarantees in Double-checked Locking