Control Invoke Pattern Using Lambdas

In Windows Forms development, there are often times when you need to update the user interface in response to something happening on another thread.  This could be a timer firing every second, some service running in the background and notifying the client of updated status on its own (background) thread, etc.  If you’ve been working with Windows Forms for any length of time, you’ve doubtless run into exceptions that kindly inform you that you can’t update controls on a thread other than the one that created those controls. We’ll consider the simple issue of a timer firing every second, and the display of elapsed time in a label, for our example here, and introduce a new pattern to make this cleaner and more intuitive.

First we’ll set up our start time and the thread.  I use the System.Threading.Timer to ensure that we’re using a non-UI thread.

StartTime = DateTime.Now;

Timer = new System.Threading.Timer(new TimerCallback(Timer_Tick));
Timer.Change(0, 1000);

Here’s the event handler that calculates the elapsed time and calls Invoke, as well as the method we’re invoking, which will run on the UI thread, where it can safely update the lblElapsedTime label control.

private void Timer_Tick(object state)
{
    TimeSpan ts = DateTime.Now - StartTime;
    Invoke(new StringDelegate(DisplayText), ts.TotalSeconds.ToString());
}

private void DisplayText(string Text)
{
    lblElapsedTime.Text = Text;
}

In order to make this work, we need the event handler, a separate method to run in the UI thread, and also a delegate that matches the invoked method.

public delegate void StringDelegate(string Text);

This is a lot of moving parts for such a small piece of functionality.  To make matters worse, you may need to repeat this pattern many times, depending on the controls (or combinations thereof) that you need to update.  In a modern multi-threaded application, your class can become littered with these invocations, handlers, and delegates.

What I’d really like to do is call Invoke and pass in an anonymous method (in lambda form).  Unfortunately, Invoke takes a Delegate parameter, which is an abstract type.  This forces you to instantiate a concrete delegate type.  So while we eliminate our need for a separate method, we’re still dependent on our delegate type.

private void Timer_Tick(object state)
{
    TimeSpan ts = DateTime.Now - StartTime;
    Invoke(new StringDelegate(s => lblElapsedTime.Text = s), ts.TotalSeconds.ToString());
}

Or are we?  By using the Action (or MethodInvoker) delegate for all of these invocations, and relying on C# and its support for closures, we can make a reference to the TimeSpan variable from within the anonymous method body, like this:

private void Timer_Tick(object state)
{
    TimeSpan ts = DateTime.Now - StartTime;
    Invoke(new Action(() => lblElapsedTime.Text = ts.TotalSeconds.ToString()));
}

Here it’s contained within a single method, and no additional delegates will be necessary to make this work.  That’s pretty nice!  (A similar approach is taken here.)  But it’s still not quite as slick and intuitive as I’d like.  By creating an extension method, adding another overload of Invoke to the Control class, we can allow Invoke to assume a concrete Action delegate class, and write code like this:

private void Timer_Tick(object state)
{
    TimeSpan ts = DateTime.Now - StartTime;
    this.Invoke(() => lblElapsedTime.Text = ts.TotalSeconds.ToString());
}

Now that’s clean.  Just call Invoke, and pass in the lambda to execute.  Or several statements in a code block if you like.  It’s very succinct.  The only part that bothers me is the this keyword that’s required.  Extension methods don’t register in Intellisense, nor do they compile successfully, if they’re used without a variable, this, base, or something else with a dot after them.  If we’re really going to push the illusion of extending a class, I think we need to go all the way and make it work without having to explicitly type this.  But it is what it is for now; hopefully this will be fixed in the next version of C# (along with adding support for extension properties, events, and operators).

That being said, here is the extension method to make this work:

public static void Invoke(this Control Control, Action Action)
{
    Control.Invoke(Action);
}

It couldn’t be simpler (thanks to a little help from Mads Torgersen)!  I’ll include the finished program for those of you who want to run it to see and experiment; you’ll just need to create the Program.cs with the startup code yourself.  Create a new Windows Forms app and use what’s there, renaming the form listed in Application.Run to match this one.

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Threading;

namespace ControlInvokeLambda
{
    public partial class frmTestInvokeLambda : Form
    {
        private Button btnExit;
        private Label lblElapsedTime;

        // make sure we're using the Threading Timer for our example, which runs on a non-UI thread
        private System.Threading.Timer Timer;
        
        private DateTime StartTime;

        public frmTestInvokeLambda()
        {
            // initialize controls
            
            btnExit = new Button();
            btnExit.Location = new Point(88, 80);
            btnExit.Name = "btnExit";
            btnExit.Size = new Size(118, 26);
            btnExit.TabIndex = 0;
            btnExit.Text = "Exit";
            btnExit.UseVisualStyleBackColor = true;
            btnExit.Click += new EventHandler(this.btnExit_Click);

            lblElapsedTime = new Label();
            lblElapsedTime.AutoSize = true;
            lblElapsedTime.Location = new Point(140, 36);
            lblElapsedTime.Name = "lblElapsedTime";
            lblElapsedTime.Size = new Size(13, 13);
            lblElapsedTime.TabIndex = 1;
            lblElapsedTime.Text = "0";

            AutoScaleDimensions = new SizeF(6F, 13F);
            AutoScaleMode = AutoScaleMode.Font;
            ClientSize = new Size(292, 136);
            Controls.Add(lblElapsedTime);
            Controls.Add(btnExit);
            Name = "frmTestInvokeLambda";
            Text = "Invoke Lambda";
            PerformLayout();

            // remember start time and startup timer

            StartTime = DateTime.Now;

            Timer = new System.Threading.Timer(new TimerCallback(Timer_Tick));
            Timer.Change(0, 1000);
        }

        private void btnExit_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Timer.Change(Timeout.Infinite, Timeout.Infinite);
            Application.Exit();
        }

        private void Timer_Tick(object state)
        {
            TimeSpan ts = DateTime.Now - StartTime;
            this.Invoke(() => lblElapsedTime.Text = ts.TotalSeconds.ToString());
        }
    }

    public static class ControlExtensions
    {
        public static void Invoke(this Control Control, Action Action)
        {
            Control.Invoke(Action);
        }
    }
}