Destination Array not long enough?
C#ListLockingC# Problem Overview
I have a class with the following method:
public List<Bike> bikesCopy
{
get
{
List<Bike> bs;
lock (_bikes) bs = new List<Bike>(_bikes);
return bs;
}
}
Which makes a copy of another list, private List<Bike> _bikes;
The strange thing now is, that I get the following error:
> Destination array was not long enough. Check destIndex and length, and the array's lower bounds.
What is the problem here?
C# Solutions
Solution 1 - C#
I would say the error lies in the object _bikes not being thread safe. As commented, somewhere there is a modify of the _bikes object that is not being lock'ed.
It is a split second error where the variable bs is set up to a size X when the size of _bikes is measured. In the next split second as it is about to fill the list, the _bikes object has increased in size giving the error.
So go over your code. Find all references of your _bikes object and make sure they are thread safe handled (with lock).
Solution 2 - C#
Well you could try:
using System.Linq; //ToList() is an extension function defined here
...
lock(_bikes)
return _bikes.ToList();
The details of the exception are discussed here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1167333/why-doesnt-a-foreach-loop-work-in-certain-cases
Solution 3 - C#
This error occurs because multiple threads are adding items in a single list. Lists are by default not a thread-safe solution. In a multi-threaded code, it is only recommended to read from a list, and not write to it.
As described here:
> If you are only reading from a shared collection, then you can use the > classes in the System.Collections.Generic namespace.
Better use a thread-safe solution like System.Collections.Concurrent namespace which provides implementations like ConcurrentBag, ConcurrentDictionary, ConcurrentQueue, ConcurrentStack etc.
For example:
public ConcurrentBag<Bike> bikesCopy
{
get => new ConcurrentBag<Bike>()
}
Solution 4 - C#
Not really an answer, more a research comment.
I ran into the same problem and did a quick test.
I tried with the code below and could not get this code to throw the ArgumentException: Destination array was not long enough
. But when I remove the .ToList()
from the line
return allLines.ToList().ToArray();
it immediately crashes.
This is the demo code and even the IDE tells me, I should remove the ToList()
call as it seems redundant.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading;
namespace ConsoleApp1
{
class Program
{
static void Main() {
List<string> thelist = new List<string>();
Thread producer = new Thread(() => {
while (true) {
thelist.Add("a" + DateTime.Now);
}
});
Thread transformer = new Thread(() => {
while (true) {
string[] thearray = thelist.ToList().ToArray();
Console.WriteLine(thearray.Length);
}
});
producer.Start();
transformer.Start();
Console.ReadKey(true);
}
}
}
I really wonder, why it would not crash, as the List is also backed by an array.