This is how I write to a stream then read from it using 1 thread:
System.IO.MemoryStream ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream();
// write to it
ms.Write(new byte[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 }, 0, 7);
// go to the begining
ms.Seek(0, System.IO.SeekOrigin.Begin);
// now read from it
byte[] myBuffer = new byte[7];
ms.Read(myBuffer, 0, 7);
Now I was wondering if it is possible to write to the memory-stream from one thread and read that stream from a separate thread.
You can't use a Stream with seeking capabilities from 2 threads simultaneous since a Stream is state full. e.g. A NetworkStream has 2 channels, one for reading and one for writing and therefore can't support seeking.
If you need seeking capabilities, you need to create 2 streams, one for reading and one for writing respectively. Else you can simply create a new Stream type which allows reading and writing from a underlying memory stream by taking exclusive access to the underlying stream and restore its write/read position. A primitive example of that would be:
class ProducerConsumerStream : Stream
{
private readonly MemoryStream innerStream;
private long readPosition;
private long writePosition;
public ProducerConsumerStream()
{
innerStream = new MemoryStream();
}
public override bool CanRead { get { return true; } }
public override bool CanSeek { get { return false; } }
public override bool CanWrite { get { return true; } }
public override void Flush()
{
lock (innerStream)
{
innerStream.Flush();
}
}
public override long Length
{
get
{
lock (innerStream)
{
return innerStream.Length;
}
}
}
public override long Position
{
get { throw new NotSupportedException(); }
set { throw new NotSupportedException(); }
}
public override int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
{
lock (innerStream)
{
innerStream.Position = readPosition;
int red = innerStream.Read(buffer, offset, count);
readPosition = innerStream.Position;
return red;
}
}
public override long Seek(long offset, SeekOrigin origin)
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
public override void SetLength(long value)
{
throw new NotImplementedException();
}
public override void Write(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
{
lock (innerStream)
{
innerStream.Position = writePosition;
innerStream.Write(buffer, offset, count);
writePosition = innerStream.Position;
}
}
}