Accessing UI (Main) Thread safely in WPF

I have an application which updates my datagrid each time a log file that I'm watching gets updated (Appended with new text) in the following manner:

private void DGAddRow(string name, FunctionType ft)
    {
                ASCIIEncoding ascii = new ASCIIEncoding();

    CommDGDataSource ds = new CommDGDataSource();

    int position = 0;
    string[] data_split = ft.Data.Split(' ');
    foreach (AttributeType at in ft.Types)
    {
        if (at.IsAddress)
        {

            ds.Source = HexString2Ascii(data_split[position]);
            ds.Destination = HexString2Ascii(data_split[position+1]);
            break;
        }
        else
        {
            position += at.Size;
        }
    }
    ds.Protocol = name;
    ds.Number = rowCount;
    ds.Data = ft.Data;
    ds.Time = ft.Time;
        
    dataGridRows.Add(ds); 
       
    rowCount++;
    }
    ...
    private void FileSystemWatcher()
    {
        FileSystemWatcher watcher = new FileSystemWatcher(Environment.CurrentDirectory);
        watcher.Filter = syslogPath;
        watcher.NotifyFilter = NotifyFilters.LastAccess | NotifyFilters.LastWrite
            | NotifyFilters.FileName | NotifyFilters.DirectoryName;
        watcher.Changed += new FileSystemEventHandler(watcher_Changed);
        watcher.EnableRaisingEvents = true;
    }

    private void watcher_Changed(object sender, FileSystemEventArgs e)
    {
        if (File.Exists(syslogPath))
        {
            string line = GetLine(syslogPath,currentLine);
            foreach (CommRuleParser crp in crpList)
            {
                FunctionType ft = new FunctionType();
                if (crp.ParseLine(line, out ft))
                {
                    DGAddRow(crp.Protocol, ft);
                }
            }
            currentLine++;
        }
        else
            MessageBox.Show(UIConstant.COMM_SYSLOG_NON_EXIST_WARNING);
    }

When the event is raised for the FileWatcher, because it creates a separate thread, when I try to run dataGridRows.Add(ds); to add the new row, the program just crashes without any warning given during debug mode.

In Winforms, this was easily solved by utilizing the Invoke function but I am not sure how to go about this in WPF.

You can use

Dispatcher.Invoke(Delegate, object[])

on the Application's (or any UIElement's) dispatcher.

You can use it for example like this:

Application.Current.Dispatcher.Invoke(new Action(() => { /* Your code here */ }));

or

someControl.Dispatcher.Invoke(new Action(() => { /* Your code here */ }));

The best way to go about it would be to get a SynchronizationContext from the UI thread and use it. This class abstracts marshalling calls to other threads, and makes testing easier (in contrast to using WPF's Dispatcher directly). For example:

class MyViewModel
{
    private readonly SynchronizationContext _syncContext;

    public MyViewModel()
    {
        // we assume this ctor is called from the UI thread!
        _syncContext = SynchronizationContext.Current;
    }

    // ...

    private void watcher_Changed(object sender, FileSystemEventArgs e)
    {
         _syncContext.Post(o => DGAddRow(crp.Protocol, ft), null);
    }
}

Use [Dispatcher.Invoke(DispatcherPriority, Delegate)] to change the UI from another thread or from background.

Step 1. Use the following namespaces

using System.Windows;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows.Threading;

Step 2. Put the following line where you need to update UI

Application.Current.Dispatcher.Invoke(DispatcherPriority.Background, new ThreadStart(delegate
{
    //Update UI here
}));

> Syntax > > [BrowsableAttribute(false)] > public object Invoke( > DispatcherPriority priority, > Delegate method > ) > > Parameters > > priority > > Type: System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherPriority > > The priority, relative to the other pending operations in the > Dispatcher event queue, the specified method is invoked. > > method > > Type: System.Delegate > > A delegate to a method that takes no arguments, which is pushed onto > the Dispatcher event queue. > > Return Value > > Type: System.Object > > The return value from the delegate being invoked or null if the > delegate has no return value. > > Version Information > > Available since .NET Framework 3.0