Threading Simplified: Part 4 (Threads Creation)

I am here again to continue the discussion of Threading. Today we will explain how to create threads and related concepts.

In case you haven’t had a look at our previous articles, you can go through the following article series:

• Threading Simplified: Part 1 (Threads Inception)
  
• Threading Simplified: Part 2 (Multithreading Concepts)
  
• Threading Simplified: Part 3 (Threads type)
  

Threads can be created in several ways. Let’s go through them one by one in the following.

1. Using only with Thread class
   
   This is the simplest way to create threads, it doesn’t use any delegate and simply keep reference to the method it must call.
   

   Thread t1 = new Thread(PrintMe1);
   t1.Start();
   
   static void PrintMe1()
   {
      Console.WriteLine("I am created using Thread Class");
   }

   Output
   
   
   
   
2. Using ThreadStart delegate
   
   The ThreadStart delegate works similar to Step 1 above. It enables starting a thread without passing any argument to the target method.
   

   Thread t2 = new Thread(new ThreadStart(PrintMe2));
   t2.Start();
   
   static void PrintMe2()
   {
      Console.WriteLine("I am created using ThreadStart delegate");
   }

   Output
   
   
   
   
3. Using ParameterizedThreadStart delegate
   
   The ParameterizedThreadStart delegate starts a thread by passing an argument (of any type) to the target method. The argument should be declared as an object type in the target method.
   

   Thread t3 = new Thread(new ParameterizedThreadStart(PrintMeWithParam));
   t3.Start("ParameterizedThreadStart delegate");
   
   static void PrintMeWithParam(object param)
   {
      Console.WriteLine("I am created using {0}", param);
   }

   Output
   
   
   
   
4. Using anonymous delegate
   
   An Anonymous delegate can be used to invoke a thread. The following example also passes the parameter to the target method.
   

   Thread t4 = new Thread(delegate()
   {
      PrintMeWithParam("anonymous delegate"); //Defined in step-3 above.
   });
   t4.Start();

   Output
   
   
   
   
5. Using lambda expression
   
   Lambda expressions can also be used to start a thread. The following example shows how to pass a parameter as well to the target method.
   

   Thread t5 = new Thread(() => PrintMeWithParam("lambda expression"));
   //PrintMeWithParam defined in step-3 above
   t5.Start();

   Output
   
   

Join Method

The Join method causes a wait for a thread to finish. In a multi-threading scenario, it can be used to provide blocking functionality by allowing waits for the specified thread.

Let’s first understand the problem without using Join.

Thread t1 = new Thread(PrintMe);
t1.Name = "Thread-1";
t1.Start();

Thread t2 = new Thread(PrintMe);
t2.Name = "Thread-2";
t2.Start();

Output



Here you can see that Thread-1 and Thread-2 are competing with each other to execute.

Now let’s run the same code with the join method as in the following snippet.

Thread t1 = new Thread(PrintMe);
t1.Name = "Thread-1";
t1.Start();
t1.Join();

Thread t2 = new Thread(PrintMe);
t2.Name = "Thread-2";
t2.Start();

Output



Now you can see that Thread-2 executes only when Thread-1 finishes or ends the execution.

I hope you have liked the article, please share your comments/suggestions in the comments section.