ThreadState Enumeration
Specifies the execution states of a Thread.
This enumeration has a FlagsAttribute attribute that allows a bitwise combination of its member values.
Namespace: System.ThreadingAssembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)
| Member name | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Running | The thread has been started, it is not blocked, and there is no pending ThreadAbortException. | |
| StopRequested | The thread is being requested to stop. This is for internal use only. | |
| SuspendRequested | The thread is being requested to suspend. | |
| Background | The thread is being executed as a background thread, as opposed to a foreground thread. This state is controlled by setting the Thread.IsBackground property. | |
| Unstarted | The Thread.Start method has not been invoked on the thread. | |
| Stopped | The thread has stopped. | |
| WaitSleepJoin | The thread is blocked. This could be the result of calling Thread.Sleep or Thread.Join, of requesting a lock — for example, by calling Monitor.Enter or Monitor.Wait — or of waiting on a thread synchronization object such as ManualResetEvent. | |
| Suspended | The thread has been suspended. | |
| AbortRequested | The Thread.Abort method has been invoked on the thread, but the thread has not yet received the pending System.Threading.ThreadAbortException that will attempt to terminate it. | |
| Aborted | The thread state includes AbortRequested and the thread is now dead, but its state has not yet changed to Stopped. |
ThreadState defines a set of all possible execution states for threads. Once a thread is created, it is in at least one of the states until it terminates. Threads created within the common language runtime are initially in the Unstarted state, while external threads that come into the runtime are already in the Running state. An Unstarted thread is transitioned into the Running state by calling Start. Not all combinations of ThreadState values are valid; for example, a thread cannot be in both the Aborted and Unstarted states.
Important Note: |
|---|
There are two thread state enumerations, System.Threading.ThreadState and System.Diagnostics.ThreadState. The thread state enumerations are only of interest in a few debugging scenarios. Your code should never use thread state to synchronize the activities of threads. |
The following table shows the actions that cause a change of state.
Action | ThreadState |
|---|---|
A thread is created within the common language runtime. | Unstarted |
A thread calls Start | Unstarted |
The thread starts running. | Running |
The thread calls Sleep | WaitSleepJoin |
The thread calls Wait on another object. | WaitSleepJoin |
The thread calls Join on another thread. | WaitSleepJoin |
Another thread calls Interrupt | Running |
Another thread calls Suspend | SuspendRequested |
The thread responds to a Suspend request. | Suspended |
Another thread calls Resume | Running |
Another thread calls Abort | AbortRequested |
The thread responds to a Abort request. | Stopped |
A thread is terminated. | Stopped |
In addition to the states noted above, there is also the Background state, which indicates whether the thread is running in the background or foreground.
A thread can be in more than one state at a given time. For example, if a thread is blocked on a call to Wait, and another thread calls Abort on the blocked thread, the blocked thread will be in both the WaitSleepJoin and the AbortRequested states at the same time. In this case, as soon as the thread returns from the call to Wait or is interrupted, it will receive the ThreadAbortException to begin aborting.
The Thread.ThreadState property of a thread provides the current state of a thread. Applications must use a bitmask to determine whether a thread is running. Since the value for Running is zero (0), test whether a thread is running by using C# code such as (myThread.ThreadState & (ThreadState.Stopped | ThreadState.Unstarted)) == 0 or Visual Basic code such as (myThread.ThreadState And (ThreadState.Stopped Or ThreadState.Unstarted)) = 0.
Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Starter Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2000 SP4, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 98
The .NET Framework and .NET Compact Framework do not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.
Important Note: