Reader-WriterLock

ReaderWriterLock is a synchronization construct used in concurrent programming to allow multiple readers to access a shared resource simultaneously while ensuring exclusive access for a single writer. This helps to improve the performance of concurrent programs by allowing multiple threads to read a shared resource at the same time, while also ensuring that only one thread can write to the resource at a time.

A ReaderWriterLock maintains a count of the number of readers and writers that are currently accessing the lock. When a thread wants to acquire the lock, it can do so in one of two modes: either as a reader, allowing multiple threads to read the shared resource simultaneously, or as a writer, allowing exclusive access to the shared resource.

In the reader mode, a thread acquires the lock by calling the EnterReadLock() method. This method blocks the thread until the lock is available for reading. Once the lock is acquired, other threads can also acquire the lock for reading, as long as no thread has acquired the lock for writing.

In the writer mode, a thread acquires the lock by calling the EnterWriteLock() method. This method blocks the thread until the lock is available for writing. Once the lock is acquired, no other thread can acquire the lock for reading or writing until the writer thread releases the lock by calling the ExitWriteLock() method.

One important aspect of the ReaderWriterLock is that it allows a writer to upgrade a reader lock to a writer lock, but it does not allow a writer to downgrade a writer lock to a reader lock. This means that once a thread has acquired a writer lock, it has exclusive access to the resource until it releases the lock.

In C#, the ReaderWriterLock class is available in the System.Threading namespace. It has been largely superseded by the ReaderWriterLockSlim class, which provides similar functionality with improved performance. However, the ReaderWriterLock can still be useful in some scenarios, particularly when upgrading reader locks to writer locks is required.