How to wait for thread to complete without blocking UI

Question

I want my program to wait after below line

frmProgressBarObj = PullMSI.ExtractByMSIName("products.txt", false);

as above method is internally calling thread through StartProcessWithProgress() method . I want that thread to be completed before //code logic -2 line gets executed. At the same time, It should not stop UI update done by frmProgressBar.UpdateProgress(). How do I do this?

namespace NS1
{
    public partial class frmMain : Form
    {                
        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            frmProgressBar frmProgressBarObj = PullMSI.ExtractByMSIName("products.txt", false);
            //code logic - 2
            MessageBox.Show("This is executing immediately. 
                             I want to wait until above thread is complete");
        }
    }

    public partial class frmProgressBar : Form
    {

        public void UpdateProgress(String strTextToDisplayOnProgress)
        {
            progressBar1.BeginInvoke(
                   new Action(() => 
                   { 
                       progressBar1.Value++; 
                       lblFileName.Text = strTextToDisplayOnProgress;
                       if (progressBar1.Value == progressBar1.Maximum)
                       {
                           this.Hide(); 
                        } 
                    }));
        }

        public delegate void DelProgress();

        public void StartProcessWithProgress(DelProgress delMethodCode, int maxCount)
        {
            InitializeProgress(maxCount);
            Thread backgroundThread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(delMethodCode));
            backgroundThread.Start();
        }
    }

    public static class PullMSI
    {
        public static frmProgressBar ExtractByMSIName(String strProductFilePath, bool reNameMSI)
        {
            frmProgressBar frmProgressBar = new frmProgressBar();

            frmProgressBar.StartProcessWithProgress(() =>
            {
                //StreamRader sr declaration and other code

                while (!sr.EndOfStream)
                {
                    //logic here
                    frmProgressBar.UpdateProgress("Copying sr.msiname");
                }
            }, 2);

            return frmProgressBar;
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

I'm very surprised you haven't worked with any of these before but I would really recommend reading about threading in C# since it's fundamentally important to understand the intricacies and learning the language.

Below are three different ways you can achieve what you want:

1. Using reset events (further reading: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.threading.manualreseteventslim(v=vs.110).aspx ). If your C# version doesn't have the ManualResetEventSlim , replace it with ManualResetEvent and change Wait() with WaitOne()

class LockingWithResetEvents
{
    private readonly ManualResetEvent _resetEvent = new ManualResetEvent(false);

    public void Test()
    {
        MethodUsingResetEvents();
    }

    private void MethodUsingResetEvents()
    {
        ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(_ => DoSomethingLong());
        ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(_ => ShowMessageBox());
    }

    private void DoSomethingLong()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Doing somthing.");
        Thread.Sleep(1000);
        _resetEvent.Set();
    }

    private void ShowMessageBox()
    {
        _resetEvent.WaitOne();
        Console.WriteLine("Hello world.");
    }
}

2) Using Task Parallel Library (TPL). Further reading: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd460717(v=vs.110).aspx

class LockingWithTPL
{
    public void Test()
    {
        Task.Factory.StartNew(DoSomethingLong).ContinueWith(result => ShowMessageBox());
    }

    private void DoSomethingLong()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Doing somthing.");
        Thread.Sleep(1000);
    }

    private void ShowMessageBox()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Hello world.");
    }
}

3) Using Async/Await. Further reading: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh191443.aspx

class LockingWithAwait
{
    public void Test()
    {
        DoSomething();
    }

    private async void DoSomething()
    {
        await Task.Run(() => DoSomethingLong());
        ShowMessageBox();
    }

    private async void DoSomethingLong()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Doing somthing.");
        Thread.Sleep(10000);
    }

    private void ShowMessageBox()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Hello world.");
    }
}

Also good to know: Mutex ( https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.threading.mutex(v=vs.110).aspx ), Semaphore ( https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.threading.semaphore(v=vs.110).aspx ), Lock ( https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/c5kehkcz.aspx ), SemaphoreSlim ( https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.threading.semaphoreslim(v=vs.110).aspx ), Monitor ( https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.threading.monitor(v=vs.110).aspx ) and Interlocked ( https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.threading.interlocked(v=vs.110).aspx ).

Answer 2

If you're using .NET 4.0 (with VS2012) or above, you can do this quite easily with the Task Parallel Library and async-await :

private async void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    frmProgressBar frmProgressBarObj = await Task.Run(() =>
                      PullMSI.ExtractByMSIName("products.txt", false));

    MessageBox.Show(string.Format("Returned {0}", frmProgressBarObj.ToString());
}

For .NET 4, you'll need to add Microsoft.Bcl.Async .