I have developed an application in c#. The class structure is as follows.
Form1 => The UI form. Has a backgroundworker, processbar, and a "ok" button.
SourceReader, TimedWebClient, HttpWorker, ReportWriter //clases do some work
Controller => Has the all over control. From "ok" button click an instance of this class called "cntrl" is created. This cntrlr is a global variable in Form1.cs.
(At the constructor of the Controler I create SourceReader, TimedWebClient,HttpWorker,ReportWriter instances. )
Then I call the RunWorkerAsync() of the background worker.
Within it code is as follows.
private void backgroundWorker1_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
int iterator = 1;
for (iterator = 1; iterator <= this.urlList.Count; iterator++)
{
cntrlr.Vmain(iterator-1);
backgroundWorker1.ReportProgress(iterator);
}
}
At themoment ReportProgress updates the progressbar.
The urlList mentioned above has 1000 of urls. cntlr.Vamin(int i) process the whole process at themoment. I want to give the task to several threads, each one having to process 100 of urls. Though access for other instances or methods of them is not prohibited, access to ReportWriter should be limited to only one thread at a time. I can't find a way to do this. If any one have an idea or an answer, please explain.
If you do want to restrict multiple threads using the same method concurrently then I would use the Semaphore class to facilitate the required thread limit; here's how...
A semaphore is like a mean night club bouncer, it has been provide a club capacity and is not allowed to exceed this limit. Once the club is full, no one else can enter... A queue builds up outside. Then as one person leaves another can enter (analogy thanks to J. Albahari).
A Semaphore with a value of one is equivalent to a Mutex or Lock except that the Semaphore has no owner so that it is thread ignorant. Any thread can call Release on a Semaphore whereas with a Mutex/Lock only the thread that obtained the Mutex/Lock can release it.
Now, for your case we are able to use Semaphores to limit concurrency and prevent too many threads from executing a particular piece of code at once. In the following example five threads try to enter a night club that only allows entry to three...
class BadAssClub
{
static SemaphoreSlim sem = new SemaphoreSlim(3);
static void Main()
{
for (int i = 1; i <= 5; i++)
new Thread(Enter).Start(i);
}
// Enfore only three threads running this method at once.
static void Enter(int i)
{
try
{
Console.WriteLine(i + " wants to enter.");
sem.Wait();
Console.WriteLine(i + " is in!");
Thread.Sleep(1000 * (int)i);
Console.WriteLine(i + " is leaving...");
}
finally
{
sem.Release();
}
}
}
Note, that SemaphoreSlim is a lighter weight version of the Semaphore class and incurs about a quarter of the overhead. it is sufficient for what you require.
I hope this helps.
I think I would have used the ThreadPool, instead of background worker, and given each thread 1, not 100 url's to process. The thread pool will limit the number of threads it starts at once, so you wont have to worry about getting 1000 requests at once. Have a look here for a good example
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/3dasc8as.aspx
Feeling a little more adventurous? Consider using TPL DataFlow to download a bunch of urls:
var urls = new[]{
"http://www.google.com",
"http://www.microsoft.com",
"http://www.apple.com",
"http://www.stackoverflow.com"};
var tb = new TransformBlock<string, string>(async url => {
using(var wc = new WebClient())
{
var data = await wc.DownloadStringTaskAsync(url);
Console.WriteLine("Downloaded : {0}", url);
return data;
}
}, new ExecutionDataflowBlockOptions{MaxDegreeOfParallelism = 4});
var ab = new ActionBlock<string>(data => {
//process your data
Console.WriteLine("data length = {0}", data.Length);
}, new ExecutionDataflowBlockOptions{MaxDegreeOfParallelism = 1});
tb.LinkTo(ab); //join output of producer to consumer block
foreach(var u in urls)
{
tb.Post(u);
}
tb.Complete();
Note how you can control the parallelism of each block explicitly, so you can gather in parallel but process without going concurrent (for example).
Just grab it with nuget. Easy.
Related
I have a ListBox with a list of URLs.
I have 2 threads taking theses URLs and treat them into a function.
My Thread 1 takes the items[0] of the ListBox, and my Thread 2 takes the items[1].
After the Thread picked up the item, it immediately remove it using Items.RemoveAt(0 or 1)
My problem using this method is that some of the URL are treated twice, some even not.
Isnt there a way to flag an URL or something else ? I'm not so familiar with multi threading
PS: In my example i said i was using 2 threads, in reality i use 5 threads.
Thanks in advance
EDIT :
Used the concurentqueue system :
Thread th1;
Thread th2;
Thread th3;
Thread th4;
Thread th5;
ConcurrentQueue<string> myQueue= new ConcurrentQueue<string>();
Int queueCount = 0;
private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//initialize objects and query the database
DBconnect conn;
conn = new DBconnect();
string query = "SELECT Url FROM Pages WHERE hash = ''";
List<string> result = conn.Select(query);
for (int i = 0; i < result.Count(); i++)
{
//For all rows found, add them to the queue
myQueue.Enqueue(result[i]);
}
//start the 5 threads to process the queue
th1 = new Thread(ProcessTorrent);
th2 = new Thread(ProcessTorrent);
th3 = new Thread(ProcessTorrent);
th4 = new Thread(ProcessTorrent);
th5 = new Thread(ProcessTorrent);
th1.Start();
th2.Start();
th3.Start();
th4.Start();
th5.Start();
}
private void ProcessTorrent()
{
//Start an unlimted task with continueWith
Task tasks = Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
{
//Check if there are still items in the queue
if (myQueue.Count > 0)
{
string queueURL;
bool haveElement = myQueue.TryDequeue(out queueURL);
//check if i can get an element from the queue
if (haveElement)
{
//start function to parse the URL and increment the number of items treated from the queue
get_torrent_detail(queueElement);
Interlocked.Increment(ref queueCount);
this.Invoke(new Action(() => label_total.Text = (myQueue.Count() - queueCount).ToString()));
}
}
});
//continue the task for another queue item
tasks.ContinueWith(task =>
{
ProcessTorrent();
});
}
It sounds like you're using a UI control to coordinate tasks between multiple threads.
That is an extremely bad idea.
Instead, you should queue up the tasks into a ConcurrentQueue<T> or BlockingCollection<T>, and have other threads take items from the queue and process them.
Yes, that happens because oyu do not synchronize access to the list.
Basically read the documentation C#, LOCK statement. Put up a lock while accessing the list. That prevents multiple threads from accessing it at the same time.
Then you ALWAYS get the top item (items[0]) immediately removing it.
I'm not so familiar with multi threading
I really love when people show that attitude. Can you imagine a cook, working in a restaurant as a professional cook, saying "ah, I am not familiar with an oven, you know". Or a doctor saying "ok, I have a problem here, I have no real idea how to give an injection". Given that today we live in a multicolored world, this sentence just SCREAMS in a bad way.
I would like to implement a Multiple file downloading with pattern of single producer and multiple consumer.
What I have:
- Code which finds new links to be downloaded in a loop
- When a new link is found - it calls download function
- Download function accepts source file path and destination file path and downloads the file.
What I want to do
- I want to download X number of files simultaneously (I dont know total number of files)
- At any times I should be able to download X files simultaneously - as soon as 1 of the X file finish downloading - the calling function should be able to add new download right away - which in turn downloading right away
So I have a producer function which keeps adding new download to queue (at any time maximum X downloads)
Multiple X thread which consumes the downloads and start downloading individually. Once it finishes download - the producer should be able to add new download - which will spawn new thread.
EXAMPLE would be really appreciated
For this P/C problem all you need is a BlockingCollection<T>.
//shared and thread-safe
static BlockingCollection<string> queue = new BlockingCollection<string>(100);
// Producer
queue.Add(fileName); // will block when full
// Consumer
if (queue.TryTake(out fileName, timeOut)) // waits when empty
...
You'll want to fine-tune it a little with timeouts and CancellationTokens.
ReaderWriterLockSlim class is designed to do that.
Also, check this brilliant website about threading:
http://www.albahari.com/threading/part4.aspx#_Reader_Writer_Locks
The example comes from the website above.
class SlimDemo
{
static ReaderWriterLockSlim _rw = new ReaderWriterLockSlim();
static List<int> _items = new List<int>();
static Random _rand = new Random();
static void Main()
{
new Thread (Read).Start();
new Thread (Read).Start();
new Thread (Read).Start();
new Thread (Write).Start ("A");
new Thread (Write).Start ("B");
}
static void Read()
{
while (true)
{
_rw.EnterReadLock();
foreach (int i in _items) Thread.Sleep (10);
_rw.ExitReadLock();
}
}
static void Write (object threadID)
{
while (true)
{
int newNumber = GetRandNum (100);
_rw.EnterWriteLock();
_items.Add (newNumber);
_rw.ExitWriteLock();
Console.WriteLine ("Thread " + threadID + " added " + newNumber);
Thread.Sleep (100);
}
}
static int GetRandNum (int max) { lock (_rand) return _rand.Next(max); }
}
Use a Concurrent collection for the communication between the boss and its work crew.
Either ConcurrentQueue (if you care about the order) or ConcurrentBag.
The boss adds to ConcurrentQueue (Add method) and the crew takes from the queue (Take method). Let me know if you need code.
I would suggest looking into the Task Parallel Library. This wraps up the method calls very cleanly, and manages your multiple threads for you.
I think I may need to re-think my design. I'm having a hard time narrowing down a bug that is causing my computer to completely hang, sometimes throwing an HRESULT 0x8007000E from VS 2010.
I have a console application (that I will later convert to a service) that handles transferring files based on a database queue.
I am throttling the threads allowed to transfer. This is because some systems we are connecting to can only contain a certain number of connections from certain accounts.
For example, System A can only accept 3 simultaneous connections (which means 3 separate threads). Each one of these threads has their own unique connection object, so we shouldn't run in to any synchronization problems since they aren't sharing a connection.
We want to process the files from those systems in cycles. So, for example, we will allow 3 connections that can transfer up to 100 files per connection. This means, to move 1000 files from System A, we can only process 300 files per cycle, since 3 threads are allowed with 100 files each. Therefore, over the lifetime of this transfer, we will have 10 threads. We can only run 3 at a time. So, there will be 3 cycles, and the last cycle will only use 1 thread to transfer the last 100 files. (3 threads x 100 files = 300 files per cycle)
The current architecture by example is:
A System.Threading.Timer checks the queue every 5 seconds for something to do by calling GetScheduledTask()
If there's nothing to, GetScheduledTask() simply does nothing
If there is work, create a ThreadPool thread to process the work [Work Thread A]
Work Thread A sees that there are 1000 files to transfer
Work Thread A sees that it can only have 3 threads running to the system it is getting files from
Work Thread A starts three new work threads [B,C,D] and transfers
Work Thread A waits for B,C,D [WaitHandle.WaitAll(transfersArray)]
Work Thread A sees that there are still more files in the queue (should be 700 now)
Work Thread A creates a new array to wait on [transfersArray = new TransferArray[3] which is the max for System A, but could vary on system
Work Thread A starts three new work threads [B,C,D] and waits for them [WaitHandle.WaitAll(transfersArray)]
The process repeats until there are no more files to move.
Work Thread A signals that it is done
I am using ManualResetEvent to handle the signaling.
My questions are:
Is there any glaring circumstance which would cause a resource leak or problem that I am experiencing?
Should I loop thru the array after every WaitHandle.WaitAll(array) and call array[index].Dispose()?
The Handle count under the Task Manager for this process slowly creeps up
I am calling the initial creation of Worker Thread A from a System.Threading.Timer. Is there going to be any problems with this? The code for that timer is:
(Some class code for scheduling)
private ManualResetEvent _ResetEvent;
private void Start()
{
_IsAlive = true;
ManualResetEvent transferResetEvent = new ManualResetEvent(false);
//Set the scheduler timer to 5 second intervals
_ScheduledTasks = new Timer(new TimerCallback(ScheduledTasks_Tick), transferResetEvent, 200, 5000);
}
private void ScheduledTasks_Tick(object state)
{
ManualResetEvent resetEvent = null;
try
{
resetEvent = (ManualResetEvent)state;
//Block timer until GetScheduledTasks() finishes
_ScheduledTasks.Change(Timeout.Infinite, Timeout.Infinite);
GetScheduledTasks();
}
finally
{
_ScheduledTasks.Change(5000, 5000);
Console.WriteLine("{0} [Main] GetScheduledTasks() finished", DateTime.Now.ToString("MMddyy HH:mm:ss:fff"));
resetEvent.Set();
}
}
private void GetScheduledTask()
{
try
{
//Check to see if the database connection is still up
if (!_IsAlive)
{
//Handle
_ConnectionLostNotification = true;
return;
}
//Get scheduled records from the database
ISchedulerTask task = null;
using (DataTable dt = FastSql.ExecuteDataTable(
_ConnectionString, "hidden for security", System.Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure,
new List<FastSqlParam>() { new FastSqlParam(ParameterDirection.Input, SqlDbType.VarChar, "#ProcessMachineName", Environment.MachineName) })) //call to static class
{
if (dt != null)
{
if (dt.Rows.Count == 1)
{ //Only 1 row is allowed
DataRow dr = dt.Rows[0];
//Get task information
TransferParam.TaskType taskType = (TransferParam.TaskType)Enum.Parse(typeof(TransferParam.TaskType), dr["TaskTypeId"].ToString());
task = ScheduledTaskFactory.CreateScheduledTask(taskType);
task.Description = dr["Description"].ToString();
task.IsEnabled = (bool)dr["IsEnabled"];
task.IsProcessing = (bool)dr["IsProcessing"];
task.IsManualLaunch = (bool)dr["IsManualLaunch"];
task.ProcessMachineName = dr["ProcessMachineName"].ToString();
task.NextRun = (DateTime)dr["NextRun"];
task.PostProcessNotification = (bool)dr["NotifyPostProcess"];
task.PreProcessNotification = (bool)dr["NotifyPreProcess"];
task.Priority = (TransferParam.Priority)Enum.Parse(typeof(TransferParam.SystemType), dr["PriorityId"].ToString());
task.SleepMinutes = (int)dr["SleepMinutes"];
task.ScheduleId = (int)dr["ScheduleId"];
task.CurrentRuns = (int)dr["CurrentRuns"];
task.TotalRuns = (int)dr["TotalRuns"];
SchedulerTask scheduledTask = new SchedulerTask(new ManualResetEvent(false), task);
//Queue up task to worker thread and start
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(new WaitCallback(this.ThreadProc), scheduledTask);
}
}
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
//Handle
}
}
private void ThreadProc(object taskObject)
{
SchedulerTask task = (SchedulerTask)taskObject;
ScheduledTaskEngine engine = null;
try
{
engine = SchedulerTaskEngineFactory.CreateTaskEngine(task.Task, _ConnectionString);
engine.StartTask(task.Task);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
//Handle
}
finally
{
task.TaskResetEvent.Set();
task.TaskResetEvent.Dispose();
}
}
0x8007000E is an out-of-memory error. That and the handle count seem to point to a resource leak. Ensure you're disposing of every object that implements IDisposable. This includes the arrays of ManualResetEvents you're using.
If you have time, you may also want to convert to using the .NET 4.0 Task class; it was designed to handle complex scenarios like this much more cleanly. By defining child Task objects, you can reduce your overall thread count (threads are quite expensive not only because of scheduling but also because of their stack space).
I'm looking for answers to a similar problem (Handles Count increasing over time).
I took a look at your application architecture and like to suggest you something that could help you out:
Have you heard about IOCP (Input Output Completion Ports).
I'm not sure of the dificulty to implement this using C# but in C/C++ it is a piece of cake.
By using this you create a unique thread pool (The number of threads in that pool is in general defined as 2 x the number of processors or processors cores in the PC or server)
You associate this pool to a IOCP Handle and the pool does the work.
See the help for these functions:
CreateIoCompletionPort();
PostQueuedCompletionStatus();
GetQueuedCompletionStatus();
In General creating and exiting threads on the fly could be time consuming and leads to performance penalties and memory fragmentation.
There are thousands of literature about IOCP in MSDN and in google.
I think you should reconsider your architecture altogether. The fact that you can only have 3 simultaneously connections is almost begging you to use 1 thread to generate the list of files and 3 threads to process them. Your producer thread would insert all files into a queue and the 3 consumer threads will dequeue and continue processing as items arrive in the queue. A blocking queue can significantly simplify the code. If you are using .NET 4.0 then you can take advantage of the BlockingCollection class.
public class Example
{
private BlockingCollection<string> m_Queue = new BlockingCollection<string>();
public void Start()
{
var threads = new Thread[]
{
new Thread(Producer),
new Thread(Consumer),
new Thread(Consumer),
new Thread(Consumer)
};
foreach (Thread thread in threads)
{
thread.Start();
}
}
private void Producer()
{
while (true)
{
Thread.Sleep(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5));
ScheduledTask task = GetScheduledTask();
if (task != null)
{
foreach (string file in task.Files)
{
m_Queue.Add(task);
}
}
}
}
private void Consumer()
{
// Make a connection to the resource that is assigned to this thread only.
while (true)
{
string file = m_Queue.Take();
// Process the file.
}
}
}
I have definitely oversimplified things in the example above, but I hope you get the general idea. Notice how this is much simpler as there is not much in the way of thread synchronization (most will be embedded in the blocking queue) and of course there is no use of WaitHandle objects. Obviously you would have to add in the correct mechanisms to shut down the threads gracefully, but that should be fairly easy.
It turns out the source of this strange problem was not related to architecture but rather because of converting the solution from 3.5 to 4.0. I re-created the solution, performing no code changes, and the problem never occurred again.
I have an application I have already started working with and it seems I need to rethink things a bit. The application is a winform application at the moment. Anyway, I allow the user to input the number of threads they would like to have running. I also allow the user to allocate the number of records to process per thread. What I have done is loop through the number of threads variable and create the threads accordingly. I am not performing any locking (and not sure I need to or not) on the threads. I am new to threading and am running into possible issue with multiple cores. I need some advice as to how I can make this perform better.
Before a thread is created some records are pulled from my database to be processed. That list object is sent to the thread and looped through. Once it reaches the end of the loop, the thread call the data functions to pull some new records, replacing the old ones in the list. This keeps going on until there are no more records. Here is my code:
private void CreateThreads()
{
_startTime = DateTime.Now;
var totalThreads = 0;
var totalRecords = 0;
progressThreadsCreated.Maximum = _threadCount;
progressThreadsCreated.Step = 1;
LabelThreadsCreated.Text = "0 / " + _threadCount.ToString();
this.Update();
for(var i = 1; i <= _threadCount; i++)
{
LabelThreadsCreated.Text = i + " / " + _threadCount;
progressThreadsCreated.Value = i;
var adapter = new Dystopia.DataAdapter();
var records = adapter.FindAllWithLocking(_recordsPerThread,_validationId,_validationDateTime);
if(records != null && records.Count > 0)
{
totalThreads += 1;
LabelTotalProcesses.Text = "Total Processes Created: " + totalThreads.ToString();
var paramss = new ArrayList { i, records };
var thread = new Thread(new ParameterizedThreadStart(ThreadWorker));
thread.Start(paramss);
}
this.Update();
}
}
private void ThreadWorker(object paramList)
{
try
{
var parms = (ArrayList) paramList;
var stopThread = false;
var threadCount = (int) parms[0];
var records = (List<Candidates>) parms[1];
var runOnce = false;
var adapter = new Dystopia.DataAdapter();
var lastCount = records.Count;
var runningCount = 0;
while (_stopThreads == false)
{
if (!runOnce)
{
CreateProgressArea(threadCount, records.Count);
}
else
{
ResetProgressBarMethod(threadCount, records.Count);
}
runOnce = true;
var counter = 0;
if (records.Count > 0)
{
foreach (var record in records)
{
counter += 1;
runningCount += 1;
_totalRecords += 1;
var rec = record;
var proc = new ProcRecords();
proc.Validate(ref rec);
adapter.Update(rec);
UpdateProgressBarMethod(threadCount, counter, emails.Count, runningCount);
if (_stopThreads)
{
break;
}
}
UpdateProgressBarMethod(threadCount, -1, lastCount, runningCount);
if (!_noRecordsInPool)
{
records = adapter.FindAllWithLocking(_recordsPerThread, _validationId, _validationDateTime);
if (records == null || records.Count <= 0)
{
_noRecordsInPool = true;
break;
}
else
{
lastCount = records.Count;
}
}
}
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
}
}
Something simple you could do that would improve perf would be to use a ThreadPool to manage your thread creation. This allows the OS to allocate a group of thread paying the thread create penalty once instead of multiple times.
If you decide to move to .NET 4.0, Tasks would be another way to go.
I allow the user to input the number
of threads they would like to have
running. I also allow the user to
allocate the number of records to
process per thread.
This isn't something you really want to expose to the user. What are they supposed to put? How can they determine what's best? This is an implementation detail best left to you, or even better, the CLR or another library.
I am not performing any locking (and
not sure I need to or not) on the
threads.
The majority of issues you'll have with multithreading will come from shared state. Specifically, in your ThreadWorker method, it looks like you refer to the following shared data: _stopThreads, _totalRecords, _noRecordsInPool, _recordsPerThread, _validationId, and _validationDateTime.
Just because these data are shared, however, doesn't mean you'll have issues. It all depends on who reads and writes them. For example, I think _recordsPerThread is only written once initially, and then read by all threads, which is fine. _totalRecords, however, is both read and written by each thread. You can run into threading issues here since _totalRecords += 1; consists of a non-atomic read-then-write. In other words, you could have two threads read the value of _totalRecords (say they both read the value 5), then increment their copy and then write it back. They'll both write back the value 6, which is now incorrect since it should be 7. This is a classic race condition. For this particular case, you could use Interlocked.Increment to atomically update the field.
In general, to do synchronization between threads in C#, you can use the classes in the System.Threading namespace, e.g. Mutex, Semaphore, and probably the most common, Monitor (equivalent to lock) which allows only one thread to execute a specific portion of code at a time. The mechanism you use to synchronize depends entirely on your performance requirements. For example, if you throw a lock around the body of your ThreadWorker, you'll destroy any performance gains you got through multithreading by effectively serializing the work. Safe, but slow :( On the other hand, if you use Interlocked.Increment and judiciously add other synchronization where necessary, you'll maintain your performance and your app will be correct :)
Once you've gotten your worker method to be thread-safe, you should use some other mechanism to manage your threads. ThreadPool was mentioned, and you could also use the Task Parallel Library, which abstracts over the ThreadPool and smartly determines and scales how many threads to use. This way, you take the burden off of the user to determine what magic number of threads they should run.
The obvious answer is to question why you want threads in the first place? Where is the analysis and benchmarks that show that using threads will be an advantage?
How are you ensuring that non-gui threads do not interact with the gui? How are you ensuring that no two threads interact with the same variables or datastructures in an unsafe way? Even if you realise you do need to use locking, how are you ensuring that the locks don't result in each thread processing their workload serially, removing any advantages that multiple threads might have provided?
I have an application that has many cases. Each case has many multipage tif files. I need to covert the tf files to pdf file. Since there are so many file, I thought I could thread the conversion process. I'm currently limiting the process to ten conversions at a time (i.e ten treads). When one conversion completes, another should start.
This is the current setup I'm using.
private void ConvertFiles()
{
List<AutoResetEvent> semaphores = new List<AutoResetEvet>();
foreach(String fileName in filesToConvert)
{
String file = fileName;
if(semaphores.Count >= 10)
{
WaitHandle.WaitAny(semaphores.ToArray());
}
AutoResetEvent semaphore = new AutoResetEvent(false);
semaphores.Add(semaphore);
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(
delegate
{
Convert(file);
semaphore.Set();
semaphores.Remove(semaphore);
}, null);
}
if(semaphores.Count > 0)
{
WaitHandle.WaitAll(semaphores.ToArray());
}
}
Using this, sometimes results in an exception stating the WaitHandle.WaitAll() or WaitHandle.WaitAny() array parameters must not exceed a length of 65. What am I doing wrong in this approach and how can I correct it?
There are a few problems with what you have written.
1st, it isn't thread safe. You have multiple threads adding, removing and waiting on the array of AutoResetEvents. The individual elements of the List can be accessed on separate threads, but anything that adds, removes, or checks all elements (like the WaitAny call), need to do so inside of a lock.
2nd, there is no guarantee that your code will only process 10 files at a time. The code between when the size of the List is checked, and the point where a new item is added is open for multiple threads to get through.
3rd, there is potential for the threads started in the QueueUserWorkItem to convert the same file. Without capturing the fileName inside the loop, the thread that converts the file will use whatever value is in fileName when it executes, NOT whatever was in fileName when you called QueueUserWorkItem.
This codeproject article should point you in the right direction for what you are trying to do: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/threads/SchedulingEngine.aspx
EDIT:
var semaphores = new List<AutoResetEvent>();
foreach (String fileName in filesToConvert)
{
String file = fileName;
AutoResetEvent[] array;
lock (semaphores)
{
array = semaphores.ToArray();
}
if (array.Count() >= 10)
{
WaitHandle.WaitAny(array);
}
var semaphore = new AutoResetEvent(false);
lock (semaphores)
{
semaphores.Add(semaphore);
}
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(
delegate
{
Convert(file);
lock (semaphores)
{
semaphores.Remove(semaphore);
}
semaphore.Set();
}, null);
}
Personally, I don't think I'd do it this way...but, working with the code you have, this should work.
Are you using a real semaphore (System.Threading)? When using semaphores, you typically allocate your max resources and it'll block for you automatically (as you add & release). You can go with the WaitAny approach, but I'm getting the feeling that you've chosen the more difficult route.
Looks like you need to remove the handle the triggered the WaitAny function to proceed
if(semaphores.Count >= 10)
{
int index = WaitHandle.WaitAny(semaphores.ToArray());
semaphores.RemoveAt(index);
}
So basically I would remove the:
semaphores.Remove(semaphore);
call from the thread and use the above to remove the signaled event and see if that works.
Maybe you shouldn't create so many events?
// input
var filesToConvert = new List<string>();
Action<string> Convert = Console.WriteLine;
// limit
const int MaxThreadsCount = 10;
var fileConverted = new AutoResetEvent(false);
long threadsCount = 0;
// start
foreach (var file in filesToConvert) {
if (threadsCount++ > MaxThreadsCount) // reached max threads count
fileConverted.WaitOne(); // wait for one of started threads
Interlocked.Increment(ref threadsCount);
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(
delegate {
Convert(file);
Interlocked.Decrement(ref threadsCount);
fileConverted.Set();
});
}
// wait
while (Interlocked.Read(ref threadsCount) > 0) // paranoia?
fileConverted.WaitOne();