Dispose a AutoResetEvent after signaling it

Question

Let's suppose we have a class MyQueue defined as below:

public class MyQueue
{
    private bool _stop;
    private readonly AutoResetEvent _onQueued = new AutoResetEvent(false);
    private readonly ConcurrentQueue<int> _queue = new ConcurrentQueue<int>();
    
    public MyQueue()
    {
        var thread = new Thread(ManageQueue)
        {
            IsBackground = true
        };
        thread.Start();
    }

    public void EnqueueInt(int num)
    {
         _queue.Enqueue(num);
         _onQueued.Set();
    }

    public void Stop()
    {
       _stop = true;
       _onQueued.Set();
    }

    private void ManageQueue()
    {
        while (!_stop)
        {
            onQueued.WaitOne();
            int tempNum;

            while(!_stop && _queue.TryDequeue(out tempNum))
            {
                 // Do something with the int
            }
        }
    }
}

So pratically we have a method EnqueueInt used to queue item inside the data structure and a thread that cyclically checks if the queue has item to be processed. The signal _onQueued is used to signal the thread when a new item is inserted or a close operation has been started. My question is: MyQueue has a disposable object (of type AutoResetEvent) and must be disposed when the queue is no longer needed, but, what's the best way to dispose it? Calling Dispose after a Close() operation could be very dangerous because of the Set() invocation in it and I've no garantee that the Thread has terminated its cycle.

Answer 1

Instead or re-inventing the wheel, you can use System.Collections.Generic.Queue<T>

Also, if you want to manage the lifetime of your queue, I would use a service, so when the service (queue service) is disposed, then you can dispose of it; here is the Microsoft guide on how to create a queue service: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/extensions/queue-service