Answer:Each object has a concurrency lock (critical section) associated with it. The System.Threading.Monitor.Enter/Exit methods are used to acquire and release this lock. For example, instances of the following class only allow one thread at a time to enter method f():
class C
{
public void f()
{
try
{
Monitor.Enter(this);
...
}
finally
{
Monitor.Exit(this);
}
}
}
C# has a 'lock' keyword which provides a convenient shorthand for the code above:
class C
{
public void f()
{
lock(this)
{
...
}
}
}
Note that calling Monitor.Enter(myObject) does NOT mean that all access to myObject is serialized. It means that the synchronisation lock associated with myObject has been acquired, and no other thread can acquire that lock until Monitor.Exit(o) is called. In other words, this class is functionally equivalent to the classes above:
class C
{
public void f()
{
lock( m_object )
{
...
}
}
private m_object = new object();
}
Actually, it could be argued that this version of the code is superior, as the lock is totally encapsulated within the class, and not accessible to the user of the object.