Using dedicated threads to perform asynchronous compute-bound operations

1. What are the reasons to create a dedicated thread?
2. What is the Thread.Join() method?

The reasons to create a dedicated thread:

1. We want to set a priority level for a thread.  By default the CLR creates threads with the Normal priority if we want to set other levels we need to create a dedicated thread.

2. We need that a thread was the foreground thread so the main thread couldn’t stop running until the foreground thread was running.

3. If a thread needs too much time to perform compute-bound operations.

4. If we need to stop a thread execution using the Thread.Abort() method.

 

	Name	Description
	Thread(ParameterizedThreadStart)	Initializes a new instance of the Thread class, specifying a delegate that allows an object to be passed to the thread when the thread is started.
	Thread(ThreadStart)	Initializes a new instance of the Thread class.
	Thread(ParameterizedThreadStart, Int32)	Initializes a new instance of the Thread class, specifying a delegate that allows an object to be passed to the thread when the thread is started and specifying the maximum stack size for the thread.
	Thread(ThreadStart, Int32)	Initializes a new instance

 

        static void Main(string[] args)

        {

            ParameterizedThreadStart parameterizedThreadStartDelegate = new ParameterizedThreadStart(DoWork);

            Thread thread = new Thread(parameterizedThreadStartDelegate);

            thread.Priority = ThreadPriority.Normal;

            thread.IsBackground = true;

            thread.Start(10000000);

            Console.WriteLine(“Now wait till the thread destroy itself”);

            thread.Join(1000);           

            Console.WriteLine(“We’ve done!”);

            //Console.ReadKey();

        }

        public static void DoWork(object data)

        {

            Console.WriteLine(“Sleep for {0} ms”, data);

            for (int i = 0; i < (int)data; i++)

            {

                Console.WriteLine(i);

            }

        }

The Thread.Join() methods cause the calling thread to stop executing any code until the dedicated thread has destroyed itself or been terminated.

	Join ()()()	Blocks the calling thread until a thread terminates, while continuing to perform standard COM and SendMessage pumping.
	Join(Int32)	Blocks the calling thread until a thread terminates or the specified time elapses, while continuing to perform standard COM and SendMessage pumping.
	Join(TimeSpan)	Blocks the calling thread until a thread terminates or the specified time elapses, while continuing to perform standard COM and SendMessage pumping.