Worst (won't actually work)
Change the access modifier of counter to public volatile
As other people have mentioned, this on its own isn't actually safe at all. The point of volatile is that multiple threads running on multiple CPUs can and will cache data and re-order instructions.
If it is not volatile, and CPU A increments a value, then CPU B may not actually see that incremented value until some time later, which may cause problems.
If it is volatile, this just ensures the two CPUs see the same data at the same time. It doesn't stop them at all from interleaving their reads and write operations which is the problem you are trying to avoid.
Second Best:
lock(this.locker) this.counter++;
This is safe to do (provided you remember to lock everywhere else that you access this.counter). It prevents any other threads from executing any other code which is guarded by locker.
Using locks also, prevents the multi-CPU reordering problems as above, which is great.
The problem is, locking is slow, and if you re-use the locker in some other place which is not really related then you can end up blocking your other threads for no reason.
Best
Interlocked.Increment(ref this.counter);
This is safe, as it effectively does the read, increment, and write in 'one hit' which can't be interrupted. Because of this, it won't affect any other code, and you don't need to remember to lock elsewhere either. It's also very fast (as MSDN says, on modern CPUs, this is often literally a single CPU instruction).
I'm not entirely sure however if it gets around other CPUs reordering things, or if you also need to combine volatile with the increment.
InterlockedNotes:
- INTERLOCKED METHODS ARE CONCURRENTLY SAFE ON ANY NUMBER OF COREs OR CPUs.
- Interlocked methods apply a full fence around instructions they execute, so reordering does not happen.
- Interlocked methods do not need or even do not support access to a volatile field, as volatile is placed a half fence around operations on given field and interlocked is using the full fence.
Footnote: What volatile is actually good for.
As volatile doesn't prevent these kinds of multithreading issues, what's it for? A good example is saying you have two threads, one which always writes to a variable (say queueLength), and one which always reads from that same variable.
If queueLength is not volatile, thread A may write five times, but thread B may see those writes as being delayed (or even potentially in the wrong order).
A solution would be to lock, but you could also use volatile in this situation. This would ensure that thread B will always see the most up-to-date thing that thread A has written. Note however that this logic only works if you have writers who never read, and readers who never write, and if the thing you're writing is an atomic value. As soon as you do a single read-modify-write, you need to go to Interlocked operations or use a Lock.
It is bad form to use this in lock statements because it is generally out of your control who else might be locking on that object.
In order to properly plan parallel operations, special care should be taken to consider possible deadlock situations, and having an unknown number of lock entry points hinders this. For example, any one with a reference to the object can lock on it without the object designer/creator knowing about it. This increases the complexity of multi-threaded solutions and might affect their correctness.
A private field is usually a better option as the compiler will enforce access restrictions to it, and it will encapsulate the locking mechanism. Using this violates encapsulation by exposing part of your locking implementation to the public. It is also not clear that you will be acquiring a lock on this unless it has been documented. Even then, relying on documentation to prevent a problem is sub-optimal.
Finally, there is the common misconception that lock(this) actually modifies the object passed as a parameter, and in some way makes it read-only or inaccessible. This is false. The object passed as a parameter to lock merely serves as a key. If a lock is already being held on that key, the lock cannot be made; otherwise, the lock is allowed.
This is why it's bad to use strings as the keys in lock statements, since they are immutable and are shared/accessible across parts of the application. You should use a private variable instead, an Object instance will do nicely.
Run the following C# code as an example.
public class Person
{
public int Age { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public void LockThis()
{
lock (this)
{
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(10000);
}
}
}
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var nancy = new Person {Name = "Nancy Drew", Age = 15};
var a = new Thread(nancy.LockThis);
a.Start();
var b = new Thread(Timewarp);
b.Start(nancy);
Thread.Sleep(10);
var anotherNancy = new Person { Name = "Nancy Drew", Age = 50 };
var c = new Thread(NameChange);
c.Start(anotherNancy);
a.Join();
Console.ReadLine();
}
static void Timewarp(object subject)
{
var person = subject as Person;
if (person == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("subject");
// A lock does not make the object read-only.
lock (person.Name)
{
while (person.Age <= 23)
{
// There will be a lock on 'person' due to the LockThis method running in another thread
if (Monitor.TryEnter(person, 10) == false)
{
Console.WriteLine("'this' person is locked!");
}
else Monitor.Exit(person);
person.Age++;
if(person.Age == 18)
{
// Changing the 'person.Name' value doesn't change the lock...
person.Name = "Nancy Smith";
}
Console.WriteLine("{0} is {1} years old.", person.Name, person.Age);
}
}
}
static void NameChange(object subject)
{
var person = subject as Person;
if (person == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("subject");
// You should avoid locking on strings, since they are immutable.
if (Monitor.TryEnter(person.Name, 30) == false)
{
Console.WriteLine("Failed to obtain lock on 50 year old Nancy, because Timewarp(object) locked on string \"Nancy Drew\".");
}
else Monitor.Exit(person.Name);
if (Monitor.TryEnter("Nancy Drew", 30) == false)
{
Console.WriteLine("Failed to obtain lock using 'Nancy Drew' literal, locked by 'person.Name' since both are the same object thanks to inlining!");
}
else Monitor.Exit("Nancy Drew");
if (Monitor.TryEnter(person.Name, 10000))
{
string oldName = person.Name;
person.Name = "Nancy Callahan";
Console.WriteLine("Name changed from '{0}' to '{1}'.", oldName, person.Name);
}
else Monitor.Exit(person.Name);
}
}
Console output
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Drew is 16 years old.
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Drew is 17 years old.
Failed to obtain lock on 50 year old Nancy, because Timewarp(object) locked on string "Nancy Drew".
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 18 years old.
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 19 years old.
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 20 years old.
Failed to obtain lock using 'Nancy Drew' literal, locked by 'person.Name' since both are the same object thanks to inlining!
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 21 years old.
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 22 years old.
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 23 years old.
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 24 years old.
Name changed from 'Nancy Drew' to 'Nancy Callahan'.
Best Answer
Being atomic is rarely enough.
I generally want to get the latest value for a variable, rather than potentially see a stale one - so some sort of memory barrier is required, both for reading and writing. A lock is a simple way to get this right, at the cost of potentially losing some performance due to contention.
I used to believe that making the variable volatile would be enough in this situation. I'm no longer convinced this is the case. Basically I now try to avoid writing lock-free code when shared data is involved, unless I'm able to use building blocks written by people who really understand these things (e.g. Joe Duffy).