Monkey testing a SmartCard library

Question

My definition of monkey testing is basically playing with a program in as if I was a monkey (press every button, unplug things, go in the wrong order..etc etc)

So I made a rather simple SmartCard library that when I "enable" it it just polls the smart card reader for a card, and reports back information. see code

private void CardStatusChange()
{
 readerState[0].dwCurrentState = SCardState.SCARD_STATE_UNAWARE;
 while (run)
 {
 System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(100);
 if (SCWrapper.SCardGetStatusChange(scHandle, UInt32.MaxValue, readerState, 1) == SCardFunctionReturnCodes.SCARD_S_SUCCESS)
 {
 readerState[0].dwCurrentState = readerState[0].dwEventState;
 SendCardStatus(readerState[0].dwEventState);
 }
 }
}
private void SendCardStatus(SCardState sCardState)
{
 //case SCardState.SCARD_STATE_UNAWARE:
 //case SCardState.SCARD_STATE_IGNORE:
 //case SCardState.SCARD_STATE_CHANGED:
 //case SCardState.SCARD_STATE_UNKNOWN:
 //case SCardState.SCARD_STATE_UNAVAILABLE:
 //case SCardState.SCARD_STATE_EMPTY:
 if (HasStateMask(sCardState, SCardState.SCARD_STATE_EMPTY))
 OnCardUnplugged(); //fire event
 //case SCardState.SCARD_STATE_PRESENT:
 if (HasStateMask(sCardState, SCardState.SCARD_STATE_PRESENT))
 {
 OnCardPluggedIn(); //fire event
 SendCardATR(readerState[0].rgbAtr); //fire event
 }
 //case SCardState.SCARD_STATE_ATRMATCH:
 OnATRMatch(HasStateMask(sCardState, SCardState.SCARD_STATE_ATRMATCH));
 //case SCardState.SCARD_STATE_EXCLUSIVE:
 //case SCardState.SCARD_STATE_INUSE:
 OnCardInUse(HasStateMask(sCardState, SCardState.SCARD_STATE_INUSE));
 //case SCardState.SCARD_STATE_MUTE:
 //case SCardState.SCARD_STATE_UNPOWERED:
}
private bool HasStateMask(SCardState theValue, SCardState theMask)
{
 return ((theValue & theMask) == theMask);
}

This part works as expected in that while my thread is running I can plug in and unplug a smartcard as often and as quickly as I want without problem. What I'm struggling with is the Threading portion of it. Visual Studio screams at me for using suspend and I found a bug when using suspend in my thread so I am taking that out (in other words don't comment on that) but this is how I "open" and "enable" my smart card

public override bool Open()
{
 readerThread = new Thread(CardStatusChange);
 //code here to setup the smart card
 return true;
}
public override bool Enable()
{
 run = true;
 //thread start checking for card events
 switch (readerThread.ThreadState)
 {//this is probably a mistake
 case ThreadState.AbortRequested:
 break;
 case ThreadState.Aborted:
 break;
 case ThreadState.Background:
 break;
 case ThreadState.Running:
 break;
 case ThreadState.StopRequested:
 break;
 case ThreadState.Stopped:
 break;
 case ThreadState.SuspendRequested:
 break;
 case ThreadState.Suspended:
 readerThread.Resume();//TODO remove
 break;
 case ThreadState.Unstarted:
 readerThread.Start();
 break;
 case ThreadState.WaitSleepJoin:
 break;
 default:
 break;
 }
 return true;
}
public override void Disable()
{
 run = false;
 readerThread.Suspend(); //TODO remove
}

I've never been too good at threading, but I do need this as a thread (I think I do atleast I am open to other ideas). So how should I really Enable and Disable? I used to just set run to true or false, but my monkey testing showed that this doesn't always work and sometimes Windows would cry that it can't start a running thread... SO I dunno what to do. Any thoughts?

• Robert Snyder: I think I found the answer. It appears to be work. On the Disable instead of readerThread.Suspend() I change it to readertThread.Join(). Then I just check for the Unstarted flag for Enable and fire it up. So far it is working good with no hicups. still have further testing.
• Ryan Gates: Can you post the answer you found as an answer? This will help future users.
• Robert Snyder: @RyanGates Sure can... :)

Answer 1

As requested by Ryan Gates I should post my results. I don't remember the entire scope of what i did, but I do know where the code is :)

So the basics are that I want the thread to be able to exit without causing any strange hicups if the user decides to use my library incorrectly. So I made the thread turn into a background thread. I was able to remove the ugly switch statement and just check the appropriate bits are set to make sure I can start my thread (basically only allows one thread to read a smart card instead of multiple reading the same card)

On Disable what I did was set my flag to kill the loop in my readerThread thread. I then wait for it to exit by using the thread.Join Clear as mud??? I can try to clear up more if anyone has questions.

public override bool Open()
{
 //Code to setup SmartCard
 readerThread = new Thread(CardStatusChange);
 readerThread.IsBackground = true;
 return true;
}
public override bool Enable()
{
 run = true;
 //thread start checking for card events
 Globals.tracer.TraceInformation("Checking Thread State:{0}", readerThread.ThreadState);
 var startable = (readerThread.ThreadState & ThreadState.Unstarted);
 if (startable > 0)
 readerThread.Start();
 return true;
}
public override void Disable()
{
 run = false;
 if(readerThread.ThreadState == ThreadState.Unstarted)
 readerThread.Join();
}