C#/.NET: Blocking and waiting for an event

Question

It sometimes want to block my thread while waiting for a event to occur.

I usually do it something like this:

private AutoResetEvent _autoResetEvent = new AutoResetEvent(false);

private void OnEvent(object sender, EventArgs e){
  _autoResetEvent.Set();
}

// ...
button.Click += OnEvent;
try{
  _autoResetEvent.WaitOne();
}
finally{
  button.Click -= OnEvent;
}

However, it seems that this should be something that I could extract to a common class (or perhaps even something that already exists in the framework).

I would like to be able to do something like this:

EventWaiter ew = new EventWaiter(button.Click);
ew.WaitOne();
EventWaiter ew2 = new EventWaiter(form.Closing);
ew2.WaitOne();

But I can't really find a way to construct such a class (I can't find a good valid way to pass the event as an argument). Can anyone help?

To give an example of why this can be useful, consider something like this:

var status = ShowStatusForm();
status.ShowInsertUsbStick();
bool cancelled = WaitForUsbStickOrCancel();
if(!cancelled){
  status.ShowWritingOnUsbStick();
  WriteOnUsbStick();
  status.AskUserToRemoveUsbStick();
  WaitForUsbStickToBeRemoved();
  status.ShowFinished();
}else{
  status.ShowCancelled();
}
status.WaitUntilUserPressesDone();

This is much more concise and readable than the equivalent code written with the logic spread out between many methods. But to implement WaitForUsbStickOrCancel(), WaitForUsbStickToBeRemoved and WaitUntilUserPressesDone() (assume that the we get an event when usb sticks are inserted or removed) I need to reimplement "EventWaiter" each time. Of course you have to be careful to never run this on the GUI-thread, but sometimes that is a worthwhile tradeoff for the simpler code.

The alternative would look something like this:

var status = ShowStatusForm();
status.ShowInsertUsbStick();
usbHandler.Inserted += OnInserted;
status.Cancel += OnCancel;
//...
void OnInserted(/*..*/){
  usbHandler.Inserted -= OnInserted;
  status.ShowWritingOnUsbStick();
  MethodInvoker mi = () => WriteOnUsbStick();
  mi.BeginInvoke(WritingDone, null);
}
void WritingDone(/*..*/){
  /* EndInvoke */
  status.AskUserToRemoveUsbStick();
  usbHandler.Removed += OnRemoved;
}
void OnRemoved(/*..*/){
  usbHandler.Removed -= OnRemoved;
  status.ShowFinished();
  status.Done += OnDone;
}
/* etc */

I find that much harder to read. Admittedly, it is far from always that the flow will be so linear, but when it is, I like the first style.

It is comparable to using ShowMessage() and Form.ShowDialog() - they also block until some "event" occurs (though they will run a message-loop if they are called on the gui-thread).

Answer 1

Don't pass the event, pass a delegate that matches the event handler signature. This actually sounds hacky to me, so be aware of potential dead lock issues.

Answer 2

Hi, try this ManualResetEvent

Answer 3

I think like these should work, didn't tried just coded.

public class EventWaiter<T> where T : EventArgs
{
    private System.Threading.ManualResetEvent manualEvent;

    public EventWaiter(T e)
    {
        manualEvent = new System.Threading.ManualResetEvent(false);
        e += this.OnEvent;
    }

    public void OnEvent(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        manualEvent.Set();
    }

    public void WaitOne()
    {
        manualEvent.WaitOne();
    }

    public void Reset()
    {
        manualEvent.Reset();
    }
}

Didn't thought about too much, but can't figure out how to make it isolated from the EventArgs.

Take a look at the MSDN ManualResetEvent and you will discover that you can kind of chain the waits and so some weird stuff.