Just wondered if the above is true or whether reference assignments are split into two operations Is this the reason you need to use <code>Interlocked.Exchange</code>? Can anyone confirm? I am talking about pointer assignment here - Is that truly atomic?

It depends on the type. For example Int64 assignments are not atomic in x86 mode and atomic in x64 mode. Assigning a <code>string</code> is atomic as it is a reference type and you are assigning a pointer and the size of the pointer is either 4 or 8 bytes depending on whether you are running on x86 or x64 bit mode.

Are Reference Assignments Truly Atomic - Even On a 64 Bit Machine?

1 Answers

It depends on the type. For example Int64 assignments are not atomic in x86 mode and atomic in x64 mode. Assigning a string is atomic as it is a reference type and you are assigning a pointer and the size of the pointer is either 4 or 8 bytes depending on whether you are running on x86 or x64 bit mode.