Looking for an example of a custom SynchronizationContext (Required for unit testing)

I need a custom SynchronizationContext that:

• Owns a single thread that runs "Posts" and "Sends" delegates
• Does the send in the order they are send in
• No other methods are needed

I need this so I can unit test some threading code that will talk to WinForm in the real application.

Before I write my own, I was hoping that someone could point me to a simple (and small) implementations.

Solution 1:

This one was written by me some time ago, no issues with copyright, no guarantees either(the system didn't go into production):

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows.Threading;

namespace ManagedHelpers.Threads
{
    public class STASynchronizationContext : SynchronizationContext, IDisposable
    {
        private readonly Dispatcher dispatcher;
        private object dispObj;
        private readonly Thread mainThread;

        public STASynchronizationContext()
        {
            mainThread = new Thread(MainThread) { Name = "STASynchronizationContextMainThread", IsBackground = false };
            mainThread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA);
            mainThread.Start();

            //wait to get the main thread's dispatcher
            while (Thread.VolatileRead(ref dispObj) == null)
                Thread.Yield();

            dispatcher = dispObj as Dispatcher;
        }

        public override void Post(SendOrPostCallback d, object state)
        {
            dispatcher.BeginInvoke(d, new object[] { state });
        }

        public override void Send(SendOrPostCallback d, object state)
        {
            dispatcher.Invoke(d, new object[] { state });
        }

        private void MainThread(object param)
        {
            Thread.VolatileWrite(ref dispObj, Dispatcher.CurrentDispatcher);
            Console.WriteLine("Main Thread is setup ! Id = {0}", Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId);
            Dispatcher.Run();
        }

        public void Dispose()
        {
            if (!dispatcher.HasShutdownStarted && !dispatcher.HasShutdownFinished)
                dispatcher.BeginInvokeShutdown(DispatcherPriority.Normal);

            GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
        }

        ~STASynchronizationContext()
        {
            Dispose();
        }
    }
}

Solution 2:

idesign.net (search for Custom Synchronization Context on the page) has a SynchronizationContext that will do the job, however it is more complex them I need.

Solution 3:

Had a similar requirement - unit testing a server component to confirm that it's callback delegate invocations were marshalled onto an appropriate SynchronizationContext and came up with the following code (based on Stephen Toub's blog post http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pfxteam/archive/2012/01/20/10259049.aspx) which I recon is simpler and more general as it uses it's own internal thread to service the Post()/Send() requests, rather than relying on WPF/Winforms/.. to perform dispatching.

    // A simple SynchronizationContext that encapsulates it's own dedicated task queue and processing
    // thread for servicing Send() & Post() calls.  
    // Based upon http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pfxteam/archive/2012/01/20/10259049.aspx but uses it's own thread
    // rather than running on the thread that it's instanciated on
    public sealed class DedicatedThreadSynchronisationContext : SynchronizationContext, IDisposable
    {
        public DedicatedThreadSynchronisationContext()
        {
            m_thread = new Thread(ThreadWorkerDelegate);
            m_thread.Start(this);
        }

        public void Dispose()
        {
            m_queue.CompleteAdding();
        }

        /// <summary>Dispatches an asynchronous message to the synchronization context.</summary>
        /// <param name="d">The System.Threading.SendOrPostCallback delegate to call.</param>
        /// <param name="state">The object passed to the delegate.</param>
        public override void Post(SendOrPostCallback d, object state)
        {
            if (d == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("d");
            m_queue.Add(new KeyValuePair<SendOrPostCallback, object>(d, state));
        }

        /// <summary> As 
        public override void Send(SendOrPostCallback d, object state)
        {
            using (var handledEvent = new ManualResetEvent(false))
            {
                Post(SendOrPostCallback_BlockingWrapper, Tuple.Create(d, state, handledEvent));
                handledEvent.WaitOne();
            }
        }

        public int WorkerThreadId { get { return m_thread.ManagedThreadId; } }
        //=========================================================================================

        private static void SendOrPostCallback_BlockingWrapper(object state)
        {
            var innerCallback = (state as Tuple<SendOrPostCallback, object, ManualResetEvent>);
            try
            {
                innerCallback.Item1(innerCallback.Item2);
            }
            finally
            {
                innerCallback.Item3.Set();
            }
        }

        /// <summary>The queue of work items.</summary>
        private readonly BlockingCollection<KeyValuePair<SendOrPostCallback, object>> m_queue =
            new BlockingCollection<KeyValuePair<SendOrPostCallback, object>>();

        private readonly Thread m_thread = null;

        /// <summary>Runs an loop to process all queued work items.</summary>
        private void ThreadWorkerDelegate(object obj)
        {
            SynchronizationContext.SetSynchronizationContext(obj as SynchronizationContext);

            try
            {
                foreach (var workItem in m_queue.GetConsumingEnumerable())
                    workItem.Key(workItem.Value);
            }
            catch (ObjectDisposedException) { }
        }
    }