Add warnings and guidance against using volatile keyword #47282
+19
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Fixes #23832
The
volatile
keyword documentation now includes prominent warnings about its limitations and strongly recommends safer alternatives for multithreaded programming.Changes Made
volatile
early in the documentSystem.Threading.Interlocked
operations for atomic operationslock
statements for mutual exclusionSystem.Threading.Volatile
class for explicit volatile operationsWhy These Changes
The C# community has identified that
volatile
is often misunderstood and misused, leading to subtle concurrency bugs. The existing documentation provided technical information but lacked guidance about when not to usevolatile
and what to use instead.What This Addresses
volatile
volatile
doesn't provide atomicity, prevent race conditions, or guarantee memory orderingvolatile
The documentation now follows the community consensus that
volatile
should be avoided in favor of more reliable alternatives while still providing the technical details for advanced scenarios.💬 Share your feedback on Copilot coding agent for the chance to win a $200 gift card! Click here to start the survey.