Return thread to ThreadPool on lock - asp.net-core

Question

When I lock on a thread on the ThreadPool like this the thread is blocked:
private static object _testServerLock = new object();
private static TestServer _testServer = null;
public TestServer GetServer()
{
lock (_testServerLock)
{
if (_testServer == null)
{
_testServer = new TestServer(); // does some async stuff internally
}
}
return _testServer;
}
If I have too more concurrent threads calling this than I have threads in the ThreadPool all of them will end up waiting for the lock, while async code happening elsewhere can't continue since it is waiting for a free thread in the ThreadPool.
So I don't want to block the thread, I need to return it to the ThreadPool while I am waiting.
Is there some other way to lock which returns the waiting thread to the ThreadPool?

Answer 1

Whatever has to be done inside a lock should be moved into a Task, which is started before the tests and finishes, when it has created its resource.
Whenever a test wants to get the resource created by the task, it can block with an await on the creator-task before accessing the resource. So all accesses to the resource are in tasks and can't block all threads of the pool.
Something like:
private static object _testServerLock = new object();
private static TestServer _testServer = null;
private static Task _testTask = null;
private async Task<TestServer> CreateTestServerAsync()
{
...
}
// Constructor of the fixture
public TestFixture()
{
// The lock here may be ok, because it's before all the async stuff
// and it doesn't wait for something inside
lock (_testServerLock)
{
if (_testTask == null)
{
_testTask = Task.Run(async () => {
// it's better to expose the async nature of the call
_testServer = await CreateTestServerAsync();
});
// or just, whatever works
//_testTask = Task.Run(() => {
// _testServer = new TestServer();
//});
}
}
}
public async Task<TestServer> GetServerAsync()
{
await _testTask;
return _testServer;
}
Update:
You can remove the lock using the initialization of the static member.
private static TestServer _testServer = null;
private static Task _testTask = Task.Run(async () => {
_testServer = await CreateTestServerAsync();
});
private static async Task<TestServer> CreateTestServerAsync()
{
...
}
public TestFixture()
{
}
public async Task<TestServer> GetServerAsync()
{
await _testTask;
return _testServer;
}

Answer 2

With xUnit ~1.7+, the main thing you can do is make your Test Method return Task<T> and then use async/await which will limit your hard-blocking/occupation of threads
xUnit 2.0 + has parallel execution and a mechanism for controlling access to state to be shared among tests. Note however that this fundamentally operates by running one tests in the Test Class at a time and giving the Class Fixture to one at a time (which is equivalent to what normally happens - only one Test Method per class runs at a time). (If you use a Collection Fixture, effectively all the Test Classes in the collection become a single Test Class).
Finally, xUnit 2 offers switches for controlling whether or not:
Assemblies run in parallel with other [Assemblies]
Test Collections/Test Classes run in parallel with others
Both of the prev
You should be able to manage your issue by not hiding the asyncness as you've done and instead either exposing it to the Test Method or by doing build up/teardown via IAsyncLifetime