C# threading problem

Question

i am trying to simplify problem as follows,

1. i have around 100+ files that i would like to read and then process the data
2. For which i maintain array of file names and location
3. I spawn threads to do the job of reading files.

Now my problem is i would like to make sure that only 5 threads are spawn at a time as starting 100 + threads is not good idea at all.

So please tell me what approach i should use to ensure that the only 5 threads are working at time and as soon as even one of them is done new one can be started.

Thanks all,

Answer 1

I vote for the task parallel library / Rx (included in .NET 4.0, but downloadable for 3.5):

        var options = new ParallelOptions();
        options.MaxDegreeOfParallelism = 5;

        Parallel.ForEach(GetListOFiles(), options, (file) =>
        {
             DoStuffWithFile(file);
        });

Note that this will use up to 5 threads, but I've seen it use less.

Answer 2

You should take a look at the

system.threading.threadpool.setmaxthreads