C# 4 and .NET 4

The Thread Class ❘ 497
For passing data to a thread, a class or struct that holds the data is needed. Here, the struct Data containing
a string is defined, but you can pass any object you want:
public struct Data
{
public string Message;
}
code snippet ThreadSamples/Program.cs
If the ParameterizedThreadStart delegate is used, the entry point of the thread must have a parameter of
type object and a void return type. The object can be cast to what it is, and here the message is written to
the console:
static void ThreadMainWithParameters(object o)
{
Data d = (Data)o;
Console.WriteLine("Running in a thread, received {0}", d.Message);
}
With the constructor of the Thread class, you can assign the new entry point ThreadMainWithParameters
and invoke the Start() method, passing the variable d:
static void Main()
{
var d = new Data { Message = "Info" };
var t2 = new Thread(ThreadMainWithParameters);
t2.Start(d);
}
Another way to pass data to the new thread is to define a class (see the class MyThread), where you define
the fields that are needed as well as the main method of the thread as an instance method of the class:
public class MyThread
{
private string data;
}
public MyThread(string data)
{
this.data = data;
}
public void ThreadMain()
{
Console.WriteLine("Running in a thread, data: {0}", data);
}
This way, you can create an object of MyThread and pass the object and the method ThreadMain() to the
constructor of the Thread class. The thread can access the data.
background Threads
var obj = new MyThread("info");
var t3 = new Thread(obj.ThreadMain);
t3.Start();
The process of the application keeps running as long as at least one foreground thread is running. If more
than one foreground thread is running and the Main() method ends, the process of the application remains
active until all foreground threads finish their work.
A thread you create with the Thread class, by default, is a foreground thread. Thread pool threads are
always background threads.
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