Thread-safe cached compiled Regex

Question

I have a use case where I want to keep a pre-compiled regex, cached, for performance reasons, but the regex pattern also needs to be updated infrequently. Instances of CachedRegexFilter class will be used by multiple threads. The actual pattern for the regex is supplied as a custom class, StringConfig, which is basically a global volatile string that can be updated by a different thread.

Example usage:

// Main thread: 
StringConfig regex = new StringConfig() { Value = ".*"}; 
CachedRegexFilter filter = new CachedRegexFilter(regex);
// now the filter is passed on to multiple service classes 
MyApi(apiFilter: filter);
MyCron(cronFilter: filter);
//The config is updated by a seperate service 
ConfigUpdaterSerice(configToUpdate: regex);

I have come up with this solution but would appreciate a review to ensure it is truly thread safe!

// a thread safe class for filtering strings based on a dynamic regex represented by a StringConfig
public class CachedRegexFilter
{
 private readonly StringConfig _overrideRegex;
 private readonly object _regexReplaceLock = new object();
 private volatile string _currentoverrideRegexPattern;
 private volatile Regex _currentoverrideRegex;
 public CachedRegexFilter(StringConfig overrideRegex)
 {
 _overrideRegex = Preconditions.IsNotNull(overrideRegex, nameof(overrideRegex)); ;
 UpdateCachedPattern();
 }
 public bool Matches(string toMatch)
 {
 if (_currentoverrideRegexPattern != _overrideRegex.Value)
 {
 lock (_regexReplaceLock)
 {
 // now entering critical section. Check again
 if (_currentoverrideRegexPattern != _overrideRegex.Value)
 {
 UpdateCachedPattern();
 }
 }
 }
 return _currentoverrideRegex?.IsMatch(toMatch) ?? false;
 }
 private void UpdateCachedPattern()
 {
 _currentoverrideRegexPattern = _overrideRegex.Value;
 _currentoverrideRegex = string.IsNullOrEmpty(_currentoverrideRegexPattern)
 ? null
 : new Regex(_currentoverrideRegexPattern, RegexOptions.Singleline | RegexOptions.Compiled);
 }
}

• iSR5: would you mind elaborate and show us an example on how is it going to be used ?
• Dexter: Hello, I've added some more context.
• iSR5: so, you're expecting that the main thread might create multiple instances of CachedRegexFilter, which will be used on multiple threads. What happens to filter instance after ConfigUpdaterSerice is finished?
• Dexter: The ConfigUpdaterSerice, runs on a cron, and periodically updates the actual string value of the regex held in the global StringConfig variable. This new value should get picked up by all threads using the CachedRegexFilter. There is only a single instance of this filter that is passed to multile APIs and service classes.

Answer 1

It depends a bit on what you mean by thread-safe here. If you mean "won't throw an exception", then you're definitely safe. You do have some potentially bad behaviour depending on your use case.

Consider the case when the config has just been updated. Thread 1 calls Matches and enters the critical region to update the regex and gets paused here:

private void UpdateCachedPattern()
{
 _currentoverrideRegexPattern = _overrideRegex.Value;
// Thread 1 paused here "between" these statements
 _currentoverrideRegex = string.IsNullOrEmpty(_currentoverrideRegexPattern)
 ? null
 : new Regex(_currentoverrideRegexPattern, RegexOptions.Singleline | RegexOptions.Compiled);
}

Thread 2 now starts executing Matches:

if (_currentoverrideRegexPattern != _overrideRegex.Value)
{
 // ...

As thread 1 has already updated the _currentoverrideRegexPattern field, the check is false (i.e. they are already equal). Thread 2 continues executing and uses the out of date Regex.

You could solve this by swapping the order:

private void UpdateCachedPattern()
{
 var newPattern = _overrideRegex.Value;
 _currentoverrideRegex = string.IsNullOrEmpty(newPattern)
 ? null
 : new Regex(newPattern, RegexOptions.Singleline | RegexOptions.Compiled);
 _currentoverrideRegexPattern = newPattern;
}

---

Honestly, the pattern you're going for here seems like a recipe for disaster. What you want to do is be able to either pull the configuration each time or have a way of the configuration notifying interested parties that it has changed.

What you're currently doing is basically mutating global state which makes code harder to follow and easier to break.

• Dexter: Unfortunately I can't modify the way we do configs in this system. Ideally the library should have Regex directly instead of strings.

Answer 2

I've got 2 reviews, first is on topic and second off topic.

Why do you have multiple regex patterns? Why would this not suffice:

public class ThreadSafeRegex {
 private Object _lock = new Object();
 private Regex _value;
 public ThreadSafeRegex(StringConfig regexString) {
 updateRegex(regexString);
 }
 public void updateRegex(StringConfig newRegexString) {
 lock(_lock) {
 _value = string.IsNullOrEmpty(_currentoverrideRegexPattern)
 ? null
 : new Regex(newRegexString, RegexOptions.Singleline | RegexOptions.Compiled);
 }
 }
 public bool match(string toMatch) {
 lock(_lock) {
 return _value?.IsMatch(toMatch) ?? false;
 }
 }
}

And secondly, what are your reasons for naming the variables the way you did? I don't understand why the private variables all contain override in their names, when there is no "original" value that is overridden. It also seems like you named your variables after their implementation and not their intent, which makes it hard to understand your code. For more information on how to name variables well, you can read my recent post about making code more readable.