C# release lock automatically after timeout

Question

does anyone have any ideas on whats the best way to implement a lock so that after X number of seconds it will automatically be released ?

Answer 1

In web development, I cache all the time with a sliding timeout. Perhaps you could use a cached object as the lock?

Here's a discussion of caching technologies in non-web applications:

Caching in C# without System.Web

Answer 2

Assuming you are looking for an event to fire in X seconds, then I don't think there's any core Mutex object which currently provides the type of functionality you are looking for.

You could create this type of functionality by using a System.Timer (to fire in X seconds and release a locked Mutex) or by using a thread which Sleep's for X seconds - I'd prefer the first method.

However, both of these will be scheduled within the user/application layer - so you would have to wait for them to be scheduled.

Answer 3

You can achieve this using Monitor.TryEnter. Please refer below -

Synchronization problems with Monitor class in WCF service

if(Monitor.TryEnter(lockObj, timeout)) {
    try {
        ...
    } finally {
        Monitor.Exit(lockObj);
    }
}