Thread Synchronization with Guarded Blocks in Delphi

The Embarcadero DocWiki for Delphi recommends that “thread synchronization techniques should be based on SyncObjs.TEvent and SyncObjs.TMutex.”

There is, however, another synchronization class available since Delphi 2009: TMonitor. It uses the object lock which has been introduced in this version and which caused the size of TObject to increase by four bytes (for details read “Why Has the Size of TObject Doubled In Delphi 2009?“, which finds that “The ability to lock any object is a good feature to have, especially in a multi-CPU, multi-core world.”).

Using TMonitor.Wait, the synchronized code waits until a lock is released without wasting processor time.

This example uses TMonitor.Wait and TMonitor.PulseAll, based on an article about guarded methods in the Java(tm) tutorials:

„This kind of application shares data between two threads: the producer, that creates the data, and the consumer, that does something with it. The two threads communicate using a shared object. Coordination is essential: the consumer thread must not attempt to retrieve the data before the producer thread has delivered it, and the producer thread must not attempt to deliver new data if the consumer hasn’t retrieved the old data.”

In this example, the data is a series of text messages, which are shared through an object of type Drop:

program TMonitorTest;

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
  SysUtils, Classes;

type
  Drop = class(TObject)
  private
    // Message sent from producer to consumer.
    Msg: string;
    // True if consumer should wait for producer to send message, false
    // if producer should wait for consumer to retrieve message.
    Empty: Boolean;
  public
    constructor Create;
    function Take: string;
    procedure Put(AMessage: string);
  end;

  Producer = class(TThread)
  private
    FDrop: Drop;
  public
    constructor Create(ADrop: Drop);
    procedure Execute; override;
  end;

  Consumer = class(TThread)
  private
    FDrop: Drop;
  public
    constructor Create(ADrop: Drop);
    procedure Execute; override;
  end;

{ Drop }

constructor Drop.Create;
begin
  Empty := True;
end;

function Drop.Take: string;
begin
  TMonitor.Enter(Self);
  try
    // Wait until message is available.
    while Empty do
    begin
      TMonitor.Wait(Self, INFINITE);
    end;
    // Toggle status.
    Empty := True;
    // Notify producer that status has changed.
    TMonitor.PulseAll(Self);
    Result := Msg;
  finally
     TMonitor.Exit(Self);
  end;
end;

procedure Drop.Put(AMessage: string);
begin
  TMonitor.Enter(Self);
  try
    // Wait until message has been retrieved.
    while not Empty do
    begin
      TMonitor.Wait(Self, INFINITE);
    end;
    // Toggle status.
    Empty := False;
    // Store message.
    Msg := AMessage;
    // Notify consumer that status has changed.
    TMonitor.PulseAll(Self);
  finally
    TMonitor.Exit(Self);
  end;
end;

{ Producer }

constructor Producer.Create(ADrop: Drop);
begin
  FDrop := ADrop;
  inherited Create(False);
end;

procedure Producer.Execute;
var
  Msgs: array of string;
  I: Integer;
begin
  SetLength(Msgs, 4);
  Msgs[0] := 'Mares eat oats';
  Msgs[1] := 'Does eat oats';
  Msgs[2] := 'Little lambs eat ivy';
  Msgs[3] := 'A kid will eat ivy too';
  for I := 0 to Length(Msgs) - 1 do
  begin
    FDrop.Put(Msgs[I]);
    Sleep(Random(5000));
  end;
  FDrop.Put('DONE');
end;

{ Consumer }

constructor Consumer.Create(ADrop: Drop);
begin
  FDrop := ADrop;
  inherited Create(False);
end;

procedure Consumer.Execute;
var
  Msg: string;
begin
  repeat
    Msg := FDrop.Take;
    WriteLn('Received: ' + Msg);
    Sleep(Random(5000));
  until Msg = 'DONE';
end;

var
  ADrop: Drop;

begin
  Randomize;
  ADrop := Drop.Create;
  Producer.Create(ADrop);
  Consumer.Create(ADrop);
  ReadLn;
end.