I have a suggestion for C#
I would like reader/writer locks to be built in to the language.
When you want to aquire a loct on an object o you write
lock(o)
{
...//critical region
}
I would like to be able to write:
readlock(o)
{
...//critical region that only reads shared data
}
Behind the scenes, the first time readlock(o) was called, the locking
mechanism on o would be upgraded to a reader/writer lock and any active,
queued or future locks on o acqired by using lock(o) would become writer
locks.
That way there would be no difference for the programmer between usind a
reader/write lock and a normal lock, all you would need to know would be
that if you want to read and write shared data you use lock(o) and if you
only want to read shared data you just use readlock(o).
It may be feasible to downgrade the reader/writer lock to a normal lock
again if only lock(o) has been used for a long time with no readlock(o)'s
beeing called.
Reader/writer locks are very common and this approach would not force the
programmer to choose between a normal lock or a reader/writer lock, they
would be the same. Furthermore with my suggestion there would be no need for
creating a reader/writer lock object and creating try finally blocks etc.
The syntax is much easier to use.
If this is not the right place to post my suggestion, where do I send my
suggestion?
Kind Regards,
Allan Ebdrup
