Returning a value from thread?

Question

How do I return a value from a thread?

Answer 1

If you don't want to use a BackgroundWorker, and just use a regular Thread, then you can fire an event to return data like this:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Threading;

namespace ThreadWithDataReturnExample
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        private Thread thread1 = null;

        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            thread1 = new Thread(new ThreadStart(this.threadEntryPoint));
            Thread1Completed += new AsyncCompletedEventHandler(thread1_Thread1Completed);
        }

        private void startButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            thread1.Start();
            //Alternatively, you could pass some object
            //in such as Start(someObject);
            //With apprioriate locking, or protocol where
            //no other threads access the object until
            //an event signals when the thread is complete,
            //any other class with a reference to the object 
            //would be able to access that data.
            //But instead, I'm going to use AsyncCompletedEventArgs 
            //in an event that signals completion
        }

        void thread1_Thread1Completed(object sender, AsyncCompletedEventArgs e)
        {
            if (this.InvokeRequired)
            {//marshal the call if we are not on the GUI thread                
                BeginInvoke(new AsyncCompletedEventHandler(thread1_Thread1Completed),
                  new object[] { sender, e });
            }
            else
            {
                //display error if error occurred
                //if no error occurred, process data
                if (e.Error == null)
                {//then success

                    MessageBox.Show("Worker thread completed successfully");
                    DataYouWantToReturn someData = e.UserState as DataYouWantToReturn;
                    MessageBox.Show("Your data my lord: " + someData.someProperty);

                }
                else//error
                {
                    MessageBox.Show("The following error occurred:" + Environment.NewLine + e.Error.ToString());
                }
            }
        }

        #region I would actually move all of this into it's own class
            private void threadEntryPoint()
            {
                //do a bunch of stuff

                //when you are done:
                //initialize object with data that you want to return
                DataYouWantToReturn dataYouWantToReturn = new DataYouWantToReturn();
                dataYouWantToReturn.someProperty = "more data";

                //signal completion by firing an event
                OnThread1Completed(new AsyncCompletedEventArgs(null, false, dataYouWantToReturn));
            }

            /// 

            /// Occurs when processing has finished or an error occurred.
            /// 
            public event AsyncCompletedEventHandler Thread1Completed;
            protected virtual void OnThread1Completed(AsyncCompletedEventArgs e)
            {
                //copy locally
                AsyncCompletedEventHandler handler = Thread1Completed;
                if (handler != null)
                {
                    handler(this, e);
                }
            }
        #endregion

    }
}