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c# How to load test a webservice

I need to test if there's any memory leak in our application and monitor to see if memory usage increases too much while processing the requests.
I'm trying to develop some code to make multiple simultaneous calls to our api/webservice method. This api method is not asynchronous and takes some time to complete its operation.
I've made a lot of research about Tasks, Threads and Parallelism, but so far I had no luck. The problem is, even after trying all the below solutions, the result is always the same, it appears to be processing only two requests at the time.
Tried:
-> Creating tasks inside a simple for loop and starting them with and without setting them with TaskCreationOptions.LongRunning
-> Creating threads inside a simple for loop and starting them with and without high priority
-> Creating a list of actions on a simple for loop and starting them using
Parallel.Foreach(list, options, item => item.Invoke)
-> Running directly inside a Parallel.For loop (below)
-> Running TPL methods with and without Options and TaskScheduler
-> Tried with different values for MaxParallelism and maximum threads
-> Checked this post too, but it didn't help either. (Could I be missing something?)
-> Checked some other posts here in Stackoverflow, but with F# solutions that I don't know how to properly translate them to C#. (I never used F#...)
(Task Scheduler class taken from msdn)
Here's the basic structure that I have:
public class Test
{
Data _data;
String _url;
public Test(Data data, string url)
{
_data = data;
_url = url;
}
public ReturnData Execute()
{
ReturnData returnData;
using(var ws = new WebService())
{
ws.Url = _url;
ws.Timeout = 600000;
var wsReturn = ws.LongRunningMethod(data);
// Basically convert wsReturn to my method return, with some logic if/else etc
}
return returnData;
}
}
sealed class ThreadTaskScheduler : TaskScheduler, IDisposable
{
// The runtime decides how many tasks to create for the given set of iterations, loop options, and scheduler's max concurrency level.
// Tasks will be queued in this collection
private BlockingCollection<Task> _tasks = new BlockingCollection<Task>();
// Maintain an array of threads. (Feel free to bump up _n.)
private readonly int _n = 100;
private Thread[] _threads;
public TwoThreadTaskScheduler()
{
_threads = new Thread[_n];
// Create unstarted threads based on the same inline delegate
for (int i = 0; i < _n; i++)
{
_threads[i] = new Thread(() =>
{
// The following loop blocks until items become available in the blocking collection.
// Then one thread is unblocked to consume that item.
foreach (var task in _tasks.GetConsumingEnumerable())
{
TryExecuteTask(task);
}
});
// Start each thread
_threads[i].IsBackground = true;
_threads[i].Start();
}
}
// This method is invoked by the runtime to schedule a task
protected override void QueueTask(Task task)
{
_tasks.Add(task);
}
// The runtime will probe if a task can be executed in the current thread.
// By returning false, we direct all tasks to be queued up.
protected override bool TryExecuteTaskInline(Task task, bool taskWasPreviouslyQueued)
{
return false;
}
public override int MaximumConcurrencyLevel { get { return _n; } }
protected override IEnumerable<Task> GetScheduledTasks()
{
return _tasks.ToArray();
}
// Dispose is not thread-safe with other members.
// It may only be used when no more tasks will be queued
// to the scheduler. This implementation will block
// until all previously queued tasks have completed.
public void Dispose()
{
if (_threads != null)
{
_tasks.CompleteAdding();
for (int i = 0; i < _n; i++)
{
_threads[i].Join();
_threads[i] = null;
}
_threads = null;
_tasks.Dispose();
_tasks = null;
}
}
}
And the test code itself:
private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
var maximum = 100;
var options = new ParallelOptions
{
MaxDegreeOfParallelism = 100,
TaskScheduler = new ThreadTaskScheduler()
};
// To prevent UI blocking
Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
{
Parallel.For(0, maximum, options, i =>
{
var data = new Data();
// Fill data
var test = new Test(data, _url); //_url is pre-defined
var ret = test.Execute();
// Check return and display on screen
var now = DateTime.Now.ToString("HH:mm:ss");
var newText = $"{Environment.NewLine}[{now}] - {ret.ReturnId}) {ret.ReturnDescription}";
AppendTextBox(newText, ref resultTextBox);
}
}
public void AppendTextBox(string value, ref TextBox textBox)
{
if (InvokeRequired)
{
this.Invoke(new ActionRef<string, TextBox>(AppendTextBox), value, textBox);
return;
}
textBox.Text += value;
}
And the result that I get is basically this:
[10:08:56] - (0) OK
[10:08:56] - (0) OK
[10:09:23] - (0) OK
[10:09:23] - (0) OK
[10:09:49] - (0) OK
[10:09:50] - (0) OK
[10:10:15] - (0) OK
[10:10:16] - (0) OK
etc
As far as I know there's no limitation on the server side. I'm relatively new to the Parallel/Multitasking world. Is there any other way to do this? Am I missing something?
(I simplified all the code for clearness and I believe that the provided code is enough to picture the mentioned scenarios. I also didn't post the application code, but it's a simple WinForms screen just to call and show results. If any code is somehow relevant, please let me know, I can edit and post it too.)
Thanks in advance!
EDIT1: I checked on the server logs that it's receiving the requests two by two, so it's indeed something related to sending them, not receiving.
Could it be a network problem/limitation related to how the framework manages the requests/connections? Or something with the network at all (unrelated to .net)?
EDIT2: Forgot to mention, it's a SOAP webservice.
EDIT3: One of the properties that I send (inside data) needs to change for each request.
EDIT4: I noticed that there's always an interval of ~25 secs between each pair of request, if it's relevant.

I would recommend not to reinvent the wheel and just use one of the existing solutions:
Most obvious choice: if your Visual Studio license allows you can use MS Load Testing Framework, most likely you won't even have to write a single line of code: How to: Create a Web Service Test
SoapUI is a free and open source web services testing tool, it has some limited load testing capabilities
If for some reasons SoapUI is not suitable (i.e. you need to run load tests in clustered mode from several hosts or you need more enhanced reporting) you can use Apache JMeter - free and open source multiprotocol load testing tool which supports web services load testing as well.

A good solution to create load tests without write a own project is use this service https://loader.io/targets
It is free for small tests, you can POST Parameters, Header,... and you have a nice reporting.

Isnt the "two requests at a time" the result of the default maxconnection=2 limit on connectionManagement?
<configuration>
<system.net>
<connectionManagement>
<add address = "http://www.contoso.com" maxconnection = "4" />
<add address = "*" maxconnection = "2" />
</connectionManagement>
</system.net>
</configuration>

My favorite load testing library is NBomber. It has an easy and powerful API, realistic user simulations, and provides you with nice HTML reports about latency and requests per second.
I used it to test my API and wrote an article about how I did it.

using EWS Managed API with ASP.NET MVC

I'm trying to create a web app which does many things but the one that I'm currently focused in is the inbox count. I want to use EWS StreamSubscription so that I can get notification for each event and returns the total count of items in the inbox. How can I use this in terms of MVC? I did find some code from Microsoft tutorial that I was gonna test, but I just couldn't figure how I could use it in MVC world i.e. What's the model going to be, if model is the count then how does it get notified every time an event occurs in Exchange Server, etc.
Here's the code I downloaded from Microsoft, but just couldn't understand how I can convert the count to json and push it to client as soon as a new change event occurs. NOTE: This code is unchanged, so it doesn't return count, yet.
using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Threading;
using Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data;
namespace StreamingNotificationsSample
{
internal class Program
{
private static AutoResetEvent _Signal;
private static ExchangeService _ExchangeService;
private static string _SynchronizationState;
private static Thread _BackroundSyncThread;
private static StreamingSubscriptionConnection CreateStreamingSubscription(ExchangeService service,
StreamingSubscription subscription)
{
var connection = new StreamingSubscriptionConnection(service, 30);
connection.AddSubscription(subscription);
connection.OnNotificationEvent += OnNotificationEvent;
connection.OnSubscriptionError += OnSubscriptionError;
connection.OnDisconnect += OnDisconnect;
connection.Open();
return connection;
}
private static void SynchronizeChangesPeriodically()
{
while (true)
{
try
{
// Get all changes from the server and process them according to the business
// rules.
SynchronizeChanges(new FolderId(WellKnownFolderName.Inbox));
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine("Failed to synchronize items. Error: {0}", ex);
}
// Since the SyncFolderItems operation is a
// rather expensive operation, only do this every 10 minutes
Thread.Sleep(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(10));
}
}
public static void SynchronizeChanges(FolderId folderId)
{
bool moreChangesAvailable;
do
{
Console.WriteLine("Synchronizing changes...");
// Get all changes since the last call. The synchronization cookie is stored in the _SynchronizationState field.
// Only the the ids are requested. Additional properties should be fetched via GetItem calls.
var changes = _ExchangeService.SyncFolderItems(folderId, PropertySet.IdOnly, null, 512,
SyncFolderItemsScope.NormalItems, _SynchronizationState);
// Update the synchronization cookie
_SynchronizationState = changes.SyncState;
// Process all changes
foreach (var itemChange in changes)
{
// This example just prints the ChangeType and ItemId to the console
// LOB application would apply business rules to each item.
Console.Out.WriteLine("ChangeType = {0}", itemChange.ChangeType);
Console.Out.WriteLine("ChangeType = {0}", itemChange.ItemId);
}
// If more changes are available, issue additional SyncFolderItems requests.
moreChangesAvailable = changes.MoreChangesAvailable;
} while (moreChangesAvailable);
}
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
// Create new exchange service binding
// Important point: Specify Exchange 2010 with SP1 as the requested version.
_ExchangeService = new ExchangeService(ExchangeVersion.Exchange2010_SP1)
{
Credentials = new NetworkCredential("user", "password"),
Url = new Uri("URL to the Exchange Web Services")
};
// Process all items in the folder on a background-thread.
// A real-world LOB application would retrieve the last synchronization state first
// and write it to the _SynchronizationState field.
_BackroundSyncThread = new Thread(SynchronizeChangesPeriodically);
_BackroundSyncThread.Start();
// Create a new subscription
var subscription = _ExchangeService.SubscribeToStreamingNotifications(new FolderId[] {WellKnownFolderName.Inbox},
EventType.NewMail);
// Create new streaming notification conection
var connection = CreateStreamingSubscription(_ExchangeService, subscription);
Console.Out.WriteLine("Subscription created.");
_Signal = new AutoResetEvent(false);
// Wait for the application to exit
_Signal.WaitOne();
// Finally, unsubscribe from the Exchange server
subscription.Unsubscribe();
// Close the connection
connection.Close();
}
private static void OnDisconnect(object sender, SubscriptionErrorEventArgs args)
{
// Cast the sender as a StreamingSubscriptionConnection object.
var connection = (StreamingSubscriptionConnection) sender;
// Ask the user if they want to reconnect or close the subscription.
Console.WriteLine("The connection has been aborted; probably because it timed out.");
Console.WriteLine("Do you want to reconnect to the subscription? Y/N");
while (true)
{
var keyInfo = Console.ReadKey(true);
{
switch (keyInfo.Key)
{
case ConsoleKey.Y:
// Reconnect the connection
connection.Open();
Console.WriteLine("Connection has been reopened.");
break;
case ConsoleKey.N:
// Signal the main thread to exit.
Console.WriteLine("Terminating.");
_Signal.Set();
break;
}
}
}
}
private static void OnNotificationEvent(object sender, NotificationEventArgs args)
{
// Extract the item ids for all NewMail Events in the list.
var newMails = from e in args.Events.OfType<ItemEvent>()
where e.EventType == EventType.NewMail
select e.ItemId;
// Note: For the sake of simplicity, error handling is ommited here.
// Just assume everything went fine
var response = _ExchangeService.BindToItems(newMails,
new PropertySet(BasePropertySet.IdOnly, ItemSchema.DateTimeReceived,
ItemSchema.Subject));
var items = response.Select(itemResponse => itemResponse.Item);
foreach (var item in items)
{
Console.Out.WriteLine("A new mail has been created. Received on {0}", item.DateTimeReceived);
Console.Out.WriteLine("Subject: {0}", item.Subject);
}
}
private static void OnSubscriptionError(object sender, SubscriptionErrorEventArgs args)
{
// Handle error conditions.
var e = args.Exception;
Console.Out.WriteLine("The following error occured:");
Console.Out.WriteLine(e.ToString());
Console.Out.WriteLine();
}
}
}
I just want to understand the basic concept as in what can be model, and where can I use other functions.

Your problem is that you are confusing a service (EWS) with your applications model. They are two different things. Your model is entirely in your control, and you can do whatever you want with it. EWS is outside of your control, and is merely a service you call to get data.
In your controller, you call the EWS service and get the count. Then you populate your model with that count, then in your view, you render that model property. It's really that simple.
A web page has no state. It doesn't get notified when things change. You just reload the page and get whatever the current state is (ie, whatever the current count is).
In more advanced applications, like Single Page Apps, with Ajax, you might periodically query the service in the background. Or, you might have a special notification service that uses something like SignalR to notify your SPA of a change, but these concepts are far more advanced than you currently are. You should probably develop your app as a simple stateless app first, then improve it to add ajax functionality or what not once you have a better grasp of things.

That's a very broad question without a clear-cut answer. Your model could certainly have a "Count" property that you could update. The sample code you found would likely be used by your controller.

Multiple publishers sending concurrent messages to a single subscriber in Retlang?

I need to build an application where some number of instances of an object are generating "pulses", concurrently. (Essentially this just means that they are incrementing a counter.) I also need to track the total counters for each object. Also, whenever I perform a read on a counter, it needs to be reset to zero.
So I was talking to a guy at work, and he mentioned Retlang and message-based concurrency, which sounded super interesting. But obviously I am very new to the concept. So I've built a small prototype, and I get the expected results, which is awesome - but I'm not sure if I've potentially made some logical errors and left the software open to bugs, due to my inexperience with Retlang and concurrent programming in general.
First off, I have these classes:
public class Plc {
private readonly IChannel<Pulse> _channel;
private readonly IFiber _fiber;
private readonly int _pulseInterval;
private readonly int _plcId;
public Plc(IChannel<Pulse> channel, int plcId, int pulseInterval) {
_channel = channel;
_pulseInterval = pulseInterval;
_fiber = new PoolFiber();
_plcId = plcId;
}
public void Start() {
_fiber.Start();
// Not sure if it's safe to pass in a delegate which will run in an infinite loop...
// AND use a shared channel object...
_fiber.Enqueue(() => {
SendPulse();
});
}
private void SendPulse() {
while (true) {
// Not sure if it's safe to use the same channel object in different
// IFibers...
_channel.Publish(new Pulse() { PlcId = _plcId });
Thread.Sleep(_pulseInterval);
}
}
}
public class Pulse {
public int PlcId { get; set; }
}
The idea here is that I can instantiate multiple Plcs, pass each one the same IChannel, and then have them execute the SendPulse function concurrently, which would allow each one to publish to the same channel. But as you can see from my comments, I'm a little skeptical that what I'm doing is actually legit. I'm mostly worried about using the same IChannel object to Publish in the context of different IFibers, but I'm also worried about never returning from the delegate that was passed to Enqueue. I'm hoping some one can provide some insight as to how I should be handling this.
Also, here is the "subscriber" class:
public class PulseReceiver {
private int[] _pulseTotals;
private readonly IFiber _fiber;
private readonly IChannel<Pulse> _channel;
private object _pulseTotalsLock;
public PulseReceiver(IChannel<Pulse> channel, int numberOfPlcs) {
_pulseTotals = new int[numberOfPlcs];
_channel = channel;
_fiber = new PoolFiber();
_pulseTotalsLock = new object();
}
public void Start() {
_fiber.Start();
_channel.Subscribe(_fiber, this.UpdatePulseTotals);
}
private void UpdatePulseTotals(Pulse pulse) {
// This occurs in the execution context of the IFiber.
// If we were just dealing with the the published Pulses from the channel, I think
// we wouldn't need the lock, since I THINK the published messages would be taken
// from a queue (i.e. each Plc is publishing concurrently, but Retlang enqueues
// the messages).
lock(_pulseTotalsLock) {
_pulseTotals[pulse.PlcId - 1]++;
}
}
public int GetTotalForPlc(int plcId) {
// However, this access takes place in the application thread, not in the IFiber,
// and I think there could potentially be a race condition here. I.e. the array
// is being updated from the IFiber, but I think I'm reading from it and resetting values
// concurrently in a different thread.
lock(_pulseTotalsLock) {
if (plcId <= _pulseTotals.Length) {
int currentTotal = _pulseTotals[plcId - 1];
_pulseTotals[plcId - 1] = 0;
return currentTotal;
}
}
return -1;
}
}
So here, I am reusing the same IChannel that was given to the Plc instances, but having a different IFiber subscribe to it. Ideally then I could receive the messages from each Plc, and update a single private field within my class, but in a thread safe way.
From what I understand (and I mentioned in my comments), I think that I would be safe to simply update the _pulseTotals array in the delegate which I gave to the Subscribe function, because I would receive each message from the Plcs serially.
However, I'm not sure how best to handle the bit where I need to read the totals and reset them. As you can see from the code and comments, I ended up wrapping a lock around any access to the _pulseTotals array. But I'm not sure if this is necessary, and I would love to know a) if it is in fact necessary to do this, and why, or b) the correct way to implement something similar.
And finally for good measure, here's my main function:
static void Main(string[] args) {
Channel<Pulse> pulseChannel = new Channel<Pulse>();
PulseReceiver pulseReceiver = new PulseReceiver(pulseChannel, 3);
pulseReceiver.Start();
List<Plc> plcs = new List<Plc>() {
new Plc(pulseChannel, 1, 500),
new Plc(pulseChannel, 2, 250),
new Plc(pulseChannel, 3, 1000)
};
plcs.ForEach(plc => plc.Start());
while (true) {
Thread.Sleep(10000);
Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Plc 1: {0}\nPlc 2: {1}\nPlc 3: {2}\n", pulseReceiver.GetTotalForPlc(1), pulseReceiver.GetTotalForPlc(2), pulseReceiver.GetTotalForPlc(3)));
}
}
I instantiate one single IChannel, pass it to everything, where internally the Receiver subscribes with an IFiber, and where the Plcs use IFibers to "enqueue" a non-returning method which continually publishes to the channel.
Again, the console output looks exactly like I would expect it to look, i.e. I see 20 "pulses" for Plc 1 after waiting 10 seconds. And the resetting of the counters after a read also seems to work, i.e. Plc 1 has 20 "pulses" after each 10 second increment. But that doesn't reassure me that I haven't overlooked something important.
I'm really excited to learn a bit more about Retlang and concurrent programming techniques, so hopefuly someone has the time to sift through my code and offer some suggestions for my specific concerns, or else even a different design based on my requirements!

How to call asynchronous services synchronously in Silverlight

I have a silverlight 5 app that depends on several asynchronous calls to web services to populate the attributes of newly created graphics. I am trying to find a way to handle those asynchronous calls synchronously. I have tried the suggestions listed in this article and this one. i have tried the many suggestions regarding the Dispatcher object. None have worked well, so I am clearly missing something...
Here is what I have:
public partial class MainPage : UserControl {
AutoResetEvent waitHandle = new AutoResetEvent(false);
private void AssignNewAttributeValuesToSplitPolygons(List<Graphic> splitGraphics)
{
for (int i = 0; i < splitGraphics.Count; i++)
{
Graphic g = splitGraphics[i];
Thread lookupThread1 = new Thread(new ParameterizedThreadStart(SetStateCountyUtm));
lookupThread1.Start(g);
waitHandle.WaitOne();
Thread lookupThread2 = new Thread(new ParameterizedThreadStart(SetCongressionalDistrict));
lookupThread1.Start(g);
waitHandle.WaitOne();
}
private void SetStateCountyUtm(object graphic)
{
this.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(delegate() {
WrapperSetStateCountyUtm((Graphic)graphic);
});
}
private void WrapperSetStateCountyUtm(Graphic graphic)
{
GISQueryEngine gisQEngine = new GISQueryEngine();
gisQEngine.StateCountyUtmLookupCompletedEvent += new GISQueryEngine.StateCountyUtmLookupEventHandler(gisQEngine_StateCountyUtmLookupCompletedEvent);
gisQEngine.PerformStateCountyUtmQuery(graphic.Geometry, graphic.Attributes["clu_number"].ToString());
}
void gisQEngine_StateCountyUtmLookupCompletedEvent(object sender, StateCountyUtmLookupCompleted stateCountyUtmLookupEventArgs)
{
string fred = stateCountyUtmLookupEventArgs.
waitHandle.Set();
}
}
public class GISQueryEngine
{
public void PerformStateCountyUtmQuery(Geometry inSpatialQueryGeometry, string cluNumber)
{
QueryTask queryTask = new QueryTask(stateandCountyServiceURL);
queryTask.ExecuteCompleted += new EventHandler<QueryEventArgs>(queryTask_StateCountyLookupExecuteCompleted);
queryTask.Failed += new EventHandler<TaskFailedEventArgs>(queryTask_StateCountyLookupFailed);
Query spatialQueryParam = new ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.Tasks.Query();
spatialQueryParam.OutFields.AddRange(new string[] { "*" });
spatialQueryParam.ReturnGeometry = false;
spatialQueryParam.Geometry = inSpatialQueryGeometry;
spatialQueryParam.SpatialRelationship = SpatialRelationship.esriSpatialRelIntersects;
spatialQueryParam.OutSpatialReference = inSpatialQueryGeometry.SpatialReference;
queryTask.ExecuteAsync(spatialQueryParam, cluNumber);
}
//and a whole bunch of other stuff i can add if needed
}
If I leave the 'waitHandle.WaitOne()' method uncommented, no code beyond that method is ever called, at least that I can see with the step through debugger. The application just hangs.
If I comment out the 'waitHandle.WaitOne()', everything runs just fine - except asynchronously. In other words, when the app reads the Attribute values of the new graphics, those values may or may not be set depending on how quickly the asynch methods return.
Thanks for any help.

It's going to be rather difficult to work through a problem like this as there are a few issues you'll need to address. SL is by nature asynch so forcing it to try and work synchronously is usually a very bad idea. You shouldn't do it unless it's absolutely necessary.
Is there a reason that you cannot wait for an async. callback? From what I see you appear to be making two calls for every state that is being rendered. I'm guessing the concern is that one call must complete before the second is made? In scenarios like this, I would kick off the first async call, and in it's response kick off the second call passing along the result you'll want to use from the first call. The second call response updates the provided references.
However, in cases where you've got a significant number of states to update, this results in a rather chatty, and difficult to debug set of calls. I'd really be looking at creating a service call that can accept a set of state references and pass back a data structure set for the values to be updated all in one hit. (or at least grouping them up to one call per state if the batch will be too time consuming and you want to render/interact with visual elements as they load up.)

Using WCF service via async interface from worker thread, how do I ensure that events are sent from the client "in order"

I am writing a Silverlight class library to abstract the interface to a WCF service. The WCF service provides a centralized logging service. The Silverlight class library provides a simplified log4net-like interface (logger.Info, logger.Warn, etc) for logging. From the class library I plan to provide options such that logged messages can be accumulated on the client and sent in "bursts" to the WCF logging service, rather than sending each message as it occurs. Generally, this is working well. The class library does accumulate messages and it does send collections of messages to the WCF logging service, where they are logged by an underlying logging framework.
My current problem is that the messages (from a single client with a single thread - all logging code is in button click events) are becoming interleaved in the logging service. I realize that the at least part of this is probably due to the instancing (PerCall) or Synchronization of the WCF logging service. However, it also seems that my messages are occurring in such rapid succession that that the "bursts" of messages leaving on the async calls are actually "leaving" the client in a different order than they were generated.
I have tried to set up a producer consumer queue as described here with a slight (or should that be "slight" with air quotes) change that the Work method blocks (WaitOne) until the async call returns (i.e. until the async callback executes). The idea is that when one burst of messages is sent to the WCF logging service, the queue should wait until that burst has been processed before sending the next burst.
Maybe what I am trying to do is not feasible, or maybe I am trying to solve the wrong problem, (or maybe I just don't know what I am doing!).
Anyway, here is my producer/consumer queue code:
internal class ProducerConsumerQueue : IDisposable
{
EventWaitHandle wh = new AutoResetEvent(false);
Thread worker;
readonly object locker = new object();
Queue<ObservableCollection<LoggingService.LogEvent>> logEventQueue = new Queue<ObservableCollection<LoggingService.LogEvent>>();
LoggingService.ILoggingService loggingService;
internal ProducerConsumerQueue(LoggingService.ILoggingService loggingService)
{
this.loggingService = loggingService;
worker = new Thread(Work);
worker.Start();
}
internal void EnqueueLogEvents(ObservableCollection<LoggingService.LogEvent> logEvents)
{
//Queue the next burst of messages
lock(locker)
{
logEventQueue.Enqueue(logEvents);
//Is this Set conflicting with the WaitOne on the async call in Work?
wh.Set();
}
}
private void Work()
{
while(true)
{
ObservableCollection<LoggingService.LogEvent> events = null;
lock(locker)
{
if (logEventQueue.Count > 0)
{
events = logEventQueue.Dequeue();
if (events == null || events.Count == 0) return;
}
}
if (events != null && events.Count > 0)
{
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("1. Work - Sending {0} events", events.Count);
//
// This seems to be the key...
// Send one burst of messages via an async call and wait until the async call completes.
//
loggingService.BeginLogEvents(events, ar =>
{
try
{
loggingService.EndLogEvents(ar);
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("3. Work - Back");
wh.Set();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
}
}, null);
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("2. Work - Waiting");
wh.WaitOne();
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("4. Work - Finished");
}
else
{
wh.WaitOne();
}
}
}
#region IDisposable Members
public void Dispose()
{
EnqueueLogEvents(null);
worker.Join();
wh.Close();
}
#endregion
}
In my test it is essentially called like this:
//Inside of LogManager, get the LoggingService and set up the queue.
ILoggingService loggingService = GetTheLoggingService();
ProducerConsumerQueue loggingQueue = new ProducerConsumerQueue(loggingService);
//Inside of client code, get a logger and log with it
ILog logger = LogManager.GetLogger("test");
for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++)
{
logger.InfoFormat("logging message [{0}]", i);
}
Internally, logger/LogManager accumulates some number of logging messages (say 25) before adding that group of messages to the queue. Something like this:
internal void AddNewMessage(string message)
{
lock(logMessages)
{
logMessages.Add(message);
if (logMessages.Count >= 25)
{
ObservableCollection<LogMessage> messages = new ObservableCollection<LogMessage>(logMessages);
logMessages.Clear();
loggingQueue.EnqueueLogEvents(messages);
}
}
}
So, in this case I would expect to have 4 bursts of 25 messages each. Based on the Debug statements in my ProducerConsumerQueue code (maybe not the best way to debug this?), I would expect to see something like this:
Work - Sending 25 events
Work - Waiting
Work - Back
Work - Finished
Repeated 4 times.
Instead I am seeing something like this:
*1. Work - Sending 25 events
*2. Work - Waiting
*4. Work - Finished
*1. Work - Sending 25 events
*2. Work - Waiting
*3. Work - Back
*4. Work - Finished
*1. Work - Sending 25 events
*2. Work - Waiting
*3. Work - Back
*4. Work - Finished
*1. Work - Sending 25 events
*2. Work - Waiting
*3. Work - Back
*3. Work - Back
*4. Work - Finished
(Added leading * so that the lines would not be autonumbered by SO)
I guess I would have expected that, the queue would have allowed multiple bursts of messages to be added, but that it would completely process one burst (waiting on the acync call to complete) before processing the next burst. It doesn't seem to be doing this. It does not seem to be reliably waiting on the completion of the async call. I do have a call to Set in the EnqueueLogEvents, maybe that is cancelling the WaitOne from the Work method?
So, I have a few questions:
1. Does my explanation of what I am trying to accomplish make sense (is my explanation clear, not is it a good idea or not)?
Is what I am trying to (transmit - from the client - the messages from a single thread, in the order that they occurred, completely processing one set of messages at a time) a good idea?
Am I close?
Can it be done?
Should it be done?
Thanks for any help!
[EDIT]
After more investigation and thanks to Brian's suggestion, we were able to get this working. I have copied the modified code. The key is that we are now using the "wh" wait handle strictly for ProducerConsumerQueue functions. Rather than using wh to wait for the async call to complete, we are now waiting on res.AsyncWaitHandle, which is returned by the BeginLogEvents call.
internal class LoggingQueue : IDisposable
{
EventWaitHandle wh = new AutoResetEvent(false);
Thread worker;
readonly object locker = new object();
bool working = false;
Queue<ObservableCollection<LoggingService.LogEvent>> logEventQueue = new Queue<ObservableCollection<LoggingService.LogEvent>>();
LoggingService.ILoggingService loggingService;
internal LoggingQueue(LoggingService.ILoggingService loggingService)
{
this.loggingService = loggingService;
worker = new Thread(Work);
worker.Start();
}
internal void EnqueueLogEvents(ObservableCollection<LoggingService.LogEvent> logEvents)
{
lock (locker)
{
logEventQueue.Enqueue(logEvents);
//System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("EnqueueLogEvents calling Set");
wh.Set();
}
}
private void Work()
{
while (true)
{
ObservableCollection<LoggingService.LogEvent> events = null;
lock (locker)
{
if (logEventQueue.Count > 0)
{
events = logEventQueue.Dequeue();
if (events == null || events.Count == 0) return;
}
}
if (events != null && events.Count > 0)
{
//System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("1. Work - Sending {0} events", events.Count);
IAsyncResult res = loggingService.BeginLogEvents(events, ar =>
{
try
{
loggingService.EndLogEvents(ar);
//System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("3. Work - Back");
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
}
}, null);
//System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("2. Work - Waiting");
// Block until async call returns. We are doing this so that we can be sure that all logging messages
// are sent FROM the client in the order they were generated. ALSO, we don't want interleave blocks of logging
// messages from the same client by sending a new block of messages before the previous block has been
// completely processed.
res.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne();
//System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("4. Work - Finished");
}
else
{
wh.WaitOne();
}
}
}
#region IDisposable Members
public void Dispose()
{
EnqueueLogEvents(null);
worker.Join();
wh.Close();
}
#endregion
}
As I mentioned in my initial question and in my comments to Jon and Brian, I still don't know if doing all of this work is a good idea, but at least the code does what I wanted it to do. That means that I at least have the choice of doing it this way or some other way (such as restoring order after the fact) rather than not having the choice.

Can I suggest that there's a simple alternative to all this coordination? Have a sequence using a cheap monotonically increasing ID (e.g. with Interlocked.Increment()) so that no matter what order things happen at the client or server, you can regenerate the original ordering later on.
That should let you be efficient and flexible, sending whatever you want asynchronously without waiting for acknowledgement, but without losing the ordering.
Obviously that means the ID (or possibly a guaranteed-unique timestamp field) would need to be part of your WCF service, but if you control both ends that should be reasonably simple.

The reason you are getting that kind of sequencing is because you are trying to use the same wait handle that the producer-consumer queue is using for a different purpose. That is going to cause all kinds of chaos. At some point things will go from bad to worse and the queue will get live-locked eventually. You really should create a separate WaitHandle to wait for completion of the logging service. Or if the BeginLoggingEvents fits the standard pattern it will return a IAsyncResult that contains a WaitHandle that you can use instead of creating your own.
As a side note, I really do not like the producer-consumer pattern presented on the Albarahi website. The problem is that it is not safe for multiple consumers (obviously that is of no concern to you). And I say that with all due respect because I think his website is one of the best resources for multithreaded programming. If BlockingCollection is available to you then use that instead.