Are Static classes thread safe

.net c#-4.0 thread-safety static-members
slash shogdhe picture slash shogdhe · Apr 30, 2011 · Viewed 11.7k times · Source

I have gone through msdn where it is written that all the static classes are thread safe. Well that article is meant for version 1.1...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/d11h6832(v=vs.71).aspx

All public static members (methods, properties, fields, and events) within the .NET Framework support concurrent access within a multithreaded environment. Therefore, any .NET Framework static member can be simultaneously invoked from two threads without encountering race conditions, deadlocks, or crashes.

Answer

Can Gencer picture Can Gencer · Apr 30, 2011

What this is saying that all static members within .NET framework are designed in a thread safe way. That means that all the static methods / fields / properties developed by Microsoft for the .NET Framework. If you want to use a static member provided by .NET Framework itself, then you can assume it's thread safe and use it as such. I would still be suspicious of the validity of that statement though, and assume non-thread safety until proven otherwise.

Any classes that you write (static, or not) yourself and that have static members might or might not be thread safe depending on how you write them. It will not magically be thread safe just because it is a static method/class.

Also take a look at this to understand what are static members and what are static classes:

Static Classes and Static Members

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