Process StandardOutput and StandardError on seperate threads.

Hi all,

I have reposted this question from dotnet.general as I have been advised
that this is a more appropriate forum for this question. Apologies for the
repost.

I have a process thats starts in my application and only terminates when my
application is terminated. I want to write the output and the errors of this
process to a seperate log file. In order to do this, I spawned two threads.

My code looks something like this

' Starting the process
oProcessStartIn fo = New ProcessStartInf o()
With oProcessStartIn fo
.FileName = strFilename
.Arguments = strArguments
.UseShellExecut e = False
.CreateNoWindow = True
.RedirectStanda rdOutput = True
.RedirectStanda rdError = True
End With
oProcess = Process.Start(o ProcessStartInf o)
' Starting the threads
oOutputThread = New Thread(AddressO f ReadStdOut)
oErrorThread = New Thread(AddressO f ReadStdError)
With oOutputThread
.Name = "StandardOutput "
.Priority = ThreadPriority. BelowNormal
.Start()
End With

With oErrorThread
.Name = "StandardEr ror"
.Priority = ThreadPriority. BelowNormal
.Start()
End With

Private Sub ReadStdOut()
' Has to run in a seperate thread
' ReadtoEnd will work only if the process is getting terminated.
Dim str As String = oProcess.Standa rdOutput.ReadLi ne
Try
Do While str.Length >= 0
If str.Length <> 0 Then
Me.oLog.WriteLo g("Standard Output : " & str) ' Writes to
a log file.
End If
str = oProcess.Standa rdOutput.ReadLi ne
Loop
Catch
Return
End Try
End Sub

I have a similair ReadStdError function and both share the same instance of
the logging class.
When writing in the log class I implement ReadWriteLock

ReadWriteLock.A cquireWriterLoc k(System.Thread ing.Timeout.Inf inite)
Try
With oStreamWriter
.BaseStream.See k(0, SeekOrigin.End)
.WriteLine(sDat e & " : " & sMessage)
End With
Finally
ReadWriteLock.R eleaseWriterLoc k() ' Release the write lock.
End Try
I would like to know if this is the best approach. It works well for me.
However I felt that if I have an infinite loop while reading the standard
output stream, my application would be memory and process intensive and that
hasnt been the case. So I am a bit curious to know why it hasnt been
intensive.

Couple of additional points (not sure of its impact to my question)
- The process doesnt has a irregular stream of data coming from Standard
Output and its not very oft occuring.
- The StandardError by its very nature also doesnt have regular data coming
from it unless there is a real issue. I dont expect any errors if my setups
are correct.
- The Do While Loop should constantly be checking ReadLine - and thats my
real concern

Greateful for any thoughts you may have. I am a complete greenhorn in
threading.

Regards,
Wazir