Reliably stop System.Threading.Timer?

Question

Well I've searched a lot for a solution to this. I'm looking for a clean and simple way to prevent the callback method of a System.Threading.Timer from being invoked after I've stopped it.

I can't seem to find any, and this has led me, on occassion, to resort to the dreaded thread-thread.sleep-thread.abort combo.

Can it be done using lock?

Answer 1

An easier solution might to be to set the Timer never to resume; the method Timer.Change can take values for dueTime and period that instruct the timer never to restart:

this.Timer.Change(Timeout.Infinite, Timeout.Infinite); 

Whilst changing to use System.Timers.Timer might be a "better" solution, there are always going to be times when that's not practical; just using Timeout.Infinite should suffice.

Answer 2

like Conrad Frix suggested you should use the System.Timers.Timer class instead, like:

private System.Timers.Timer _timer = new System.Timers.Timer(); private volatile bool _requestStop = false;  public constructor() {     _timer.Interval = 100;     _timer.Elapsed += OnTimerElapsed;     _timer.AutoReset = false;     _timer.Start(); }  private void OnTimerElapsed(object sender, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e) {     // do work....     if (!_requestStop)     {         _timer.Start();//restart the timer     } }  private void Stop() {     _requestStop = true;     _timer.Stop(); }  private void Start() {     _requestStop = false;     _timer.Start(); }