Is the C# static constructor thread safe?

Question

In other words, is this Singleton implementation thread safe:

public class Singleton
{
    private static Singleton instance;

    private Singleton() { }

    static Singleton()
    {
        instance = new Singleton();
    }

    public static Singleton Instance
    {
        get { return instance; }
    }
}

Answer 1

Static constructors are guaranteed to be run only once per application domain, before any instances of a class are created or any static members are accessed. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa645612.aspx

The implementation shown is thread safe for the initial construction, that is, no locking or null testing is required for constructing the Singleton object. However, this does not mean that any use of the instance will be synchronised. There are a variety of ways that this can be done; I've shown one below.

public class Singleton
{
    private static Singleton instance;
    // Added a static mutex for synchronising use of instance.
    private static System.Threading.Mutex mutex;
    private Singleton() { }
    static Singleton()
    {
        instance = new Singleton();
        mutex = new System.Threading.Mutex();
    }

    public static Singleton Acquire()
    {
        mutex.WaitOne();
        return instance;
    }

    // Each call to Acquire() requires a call to Release()
    public static void Release()
    {
        mutex.ReleaseMutex();
    }
}

Answer 2

While all of these answers are giving the same general answer, there is one caveat.

Remember that all potential derivations of a generic class are compiled as individual types. So use caution when implementing static constructors for generic types.

class MyObject<T>
{
    static MyObject() 
    {
       //this code will get executed for each T.
    }
}

EDIT:

Here is the demonstration:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var obj = new Foo<object>();
    var obj2 = new Foo<string>();
}

public class Foo<T>
{
    static Foo()
    {
         System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(String.Format("Hit {0}", typeof(T).ToString()));        
    }
}

In the console:

Hit System.Object
Hit System.String

Answer 3

Using a static constructor actually is threadsafe. The static constructor is guaranteed to be executed only once.

From the C# language specification http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa645612(VS.71).aspx:

The static constructor for a class executes at most once in a given application domain. The execution of a static constructor is triggered by the first of the following events to occur within an application domain:

• An instance of the class is created.
• Any of the static members of the class are referenced.

So yes, you can trust that your singleton will be correctly instantiated.

Zooba made an excellent point (and 15 seconds before me, too!) that the static constructor will not guarantee thread-safe shared access to the singleton. That will need to be handled in another manner.

Answer 4

Here's the Cliffnotes version from the above MSDN page on c# singleton:

Use the following pattern, always, you can't go wrong:

public sealed class Singleton
{
   private static readonly Singleton instance = new Singleton();

   private Singleton(){}

   public static Singleton Instance
   {
      get 
      {
         return instance; 
      }
   }
}

Beyond the obvious singleton features, it gives you these two things for free (in respect to singleton in c++):

1. lazy construction (or no construction if it was never called)
2. synchronization

Answer 5

Static constructors are guaranteed to fire only once per App Domain so your approach should be OK. However, it is functionally no different from the more concise, inline version:

private static readonly Singleton instance = new Singleton();

Thread safety is more of an issue when you are lazily initializing things.

Answer 6

The Common Language Infrastructure specification guarantees that "a type initializer shall run exactly once for any given type, unless explicitly called by user code." (Section 9.5.3.1.) So unless you have some whacky IL on the loose calling Singleton::.cctor directly (unlikely) your static constructor will run exactly once before the Singleton type is used, only one instance of Singleton will be created, and your Instance property is thread-safe.

Note that if Singleton's constructor accesses the Instance property (even indirectly) then the Instance property will be null. The best you can do is detect when this happens and throw an exception, by checking that instance is non-null in the property accessor. After your static constructor completes the Instance property will be non-null.

As Zoomba's answer points out you will need to make Singleton safe to access from multiple threads, or implement a locking mechanism around using the singleton instance.

Answer 7

The static constructor will finish running before any thread is allowed to access the class.

    private class InitializerTest
    {
        static private int _x;
        static public string Status()
        {
            return "_x = " + _x;
        }
        static InitializerTest()
        {
            System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("InitializerTest() starting.");
            _x = 1;
            Thread.Sleep(3000);
            _x = 2;
            System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("InitializerTest() finished.");
        }
    }

    private void ClassInitializerInThread()
    {
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(Thread.CurrentThread.GetHashCode() + ": ClassInitializerInThread() starting.");
        string status = InitializerTest.Status();
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(Thread.CurrentThread.GetHashCode() + ": ClassInitializerInThread() status = " + status);
    }

    private void classInitializerButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        new Thread(ClassInitializerInThread).Start();
        new Thread(ClassInitializerInThread).Start();
        new Thread(ClassInitializerInThread).Start();
    }

The code above produced the results below.

10: ClassInitializerInThread() starting.
11: ClassInitializerInThread() starting.
12: ClassInitializerInThread() starting.
InitializerTest() starting.
InitializerTest() finished.
11: ClassInitializerInThread() status = _x = 2
The thread 0x2650 has exited with code 0 (0x0).
10: ClassInitializerInThread() status = _x = 2
The thread 0x1f50 has exited with code 0 (0x0).
12: ClassInitializerInThread() status = _x = 2
The thread 0x73c has exited with code 0 (0x0).

Even though the static constructor took a long time to run, the other threads stopped and waited. All threads read the value of _x set at the bottom of the static constructor.

Answer 8

Just to be pedantic, but there is no such thing as a static constructor, but rather static type initializers, here's a small demo of cyclic static constructor dependency which illustrates this point.

Answer 9

Static constructor is guaranteed to be thread safe. Also, check out the discussion on Singleton at DeveloperZen: http://www.developerzen.com/2007/07/15/whats-wrong-with-this-code-1-discussion/

Answer 10

Although other answers are mostly correct, there is yet another caveat with static constructors.

As per section II.10.5.3.3 Races and deadlocks of the ECMA-335 Common Language Infrastructure

Type initialization alone shall not create a deadlock unless some code called from a type initializer (directly or indirectly) explicitly invokes blocking operations.

The following code results in a deadlock

using System.Threading;
class MyClass
{
    static void Main() { /* Won’t run... the static constructor deadlocks */  }

    static MyClass()
    {
        Thread thread = new Thread(arg => { });
        thread.Start();
        thread.Join();
    }
}

Original author is Igor Ostrovsky, see his post here.