What is the Mutex and semaphore In c#? where we need to implement?

Question

What is the Mutex and semaphore In c#? where we need to implement?

How can we work with them in multithreading?

Answer 1

Article by Antuan Kinnard at Clarity Consulting.

Answer 2

You should start at MSDN.

• System.Threading.Mutex: A synchronization primitive that can also be used for interprocess synchronization.
• System.Threading.Semaphore: Limits the number of threads that can access a resource or pool of resources concurrently.

Generally you only use a Mutex across processes, e.g. if you have a resource that multiple applications must share, or if you want to build a single-instanced app (i.e. only allow 1 copy to be running at one time).

A semaphore allows you to limit access to a specific number of simultaneous threads, so that you could have, for example, a maximum of two threads executing a specific code path at a time.

Answer 3

You might want to check out the lock statement. It can handle the vast majority of thread synchonization tasks in C#

class Test {
    private static object Lock = new object();

    public function Synchronized()
    {
        lock(Lock)
        {
            // Only one thread at a time is able to enter this section
        }
    }
}

The lock statement is implemented by calling Monitor.Enter and Monitor.Exit. It is equivalent to the following code:

Monitor.Enter(Lock);    
try
{
    // Only one thread at a time is able to enter this section
}
finally
{
    Monitor.Exit(Lock);
}

Answer 4

I'd start by reading this: http://www.albahari.com/threading/part2.aspx#%5FSynchronization%5FEssentials and then bolster it with the MSDN links bobbymcr posted.