C#, is there such a thing as a "thread-safe" stream?
There's a SyncrhonizedStream built into the framework, they just don't expose the class for you to look at/subclass etc, but you can turn any stream into a SynchronizedStream using
var syncStream = Stream.Synchronized(inStream);You should pass the syncStream object around to each thread that needs it, and make sure you never try to access inStream elsewhere in code.
The SynchronizedStream just implements a monitor on all read/write operation to ensure that a thread has mutually exclusive access to the stream.
Edit:
Appears they also implements a SynchronizedReader/SynchronizedWriter in the framework too.
var reader = TextReader.Synchronized(process.StandardOutput);
A 'thread-safe' stream doesn't really mean anything. If the stream is somehow shared you must define on what level synchronization/sharing can take place. This in terms of the data packets (messages or records) and their allowed/required ordering.