How to wait for thread to finish with .NET?

Question

I've never really used threading before in C# where I need to have two threads, as well as the main UI thread. Basically, I have the following.

public void StartTheActions()
{
  //Starting thread 1....
  Thread t1 = new Thread(new ThreadStart(action1));
  t1.Start();

  // Now, I want for the main thread (which is calling `StartTheActions` method) 
  // to wait for `t1` to finish. I've created an event in `action1` for this. 
  // The I wish `t2` to start...

  Thread t2 = new Thread(new ThreadStart(action2));
  t2.Start();
}

So, essentially, my question is how to have a thread wait for another one to finish. What is the best way to do this?

Answer 1

I would have your main thread pass a callback method to your first thread, and when it's done, it will invoke the callback method on the mainthread, which can launch the second thread. This keeps your main thread from hanging while its waiting for a Join or Waithandle. Passing methods as delegates is a useful thing to learn with C# anyway.

Answer 2

Add

t1.Join();    // Wait until thread t1 finishes

after you start it, but that won't accomplish much as it's essentialy the same result as running on the main thread!

I can highly recommended reading Joe Albahari's Threading in C# free e-book, if you want to gain an understanding of threading in .NET.