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How to: Perform lazy initialization of objects

The System.Lazy<T> class simplifies the work of performing lazy initialization and instantiation of objects. By initializing objects in a lazy manner, you can avoid having to create them at all if they're never needed, or you can postpone their initialization until they are first accessed. For more information, see Lazy initialization.

Example 1

The following example shows how to initialize a value with Lazy<T>. Assume that the lazy variable might not be needed, depending on some other code that sets the someCondition variable to true or false.

Dim someCondition As Boolean = False

Sub Main()
    'Initialize a value with a big computation, computed in parallel.
    Dim _data As Lazy(Of Integer) = New Lazy(Of Integer)(Function()
                                                             Dim result =
                                                                 ParallelEnumerable.Range(0, 1000).
                                                                 Aggregate(Function(x, y)
                                                                               Return x + y
                                                                           End Function)
                                                             Return result
                                                         End Function)

    '  Do work that might or might not set someCondition to True...

    '  Initialize the data only if needed.
    If someCondition = True Then
        If (_data.Value > 100) Then
            Console.WriteLine("Good data")
        End If
    End If
End Sub

  static bool someCondition = false;
  // Initialize a value with a big computation, computed in parallel.
  Lazy<int> _data = new Lazy<int>(delegate
  {
      return ParallelEnumerable.Range(0, 1000).
          Select(i => Compute(i)).Aggregate((x,y) => x + y);
  }, LazyThreadSafetyMode.ExecutionAndPublication);

  // Do some work that might or might not set someCondition to true...

  // Initialize the data only if necessary.
  if (someCondition)
  {
      if (_data.Value > 100)
      {
          Console.WriteLine("Good data");
      }
  }

Example 2

The following example shows how to use the System.Threading.ThreadLocal<T> class to initialize a type that is visible only to the current object instance on the current thread.

// Initialize a value per thread, per instance.
ThreadLocal<int[][]> _scratchArrays =
    new(InitializeArrays);

static int[][] InitializeArrays() => [new int[10], new int[10]];

// Use the thread-local data.
int i = 8;
int[] tempArr = _scratchArrays.Value[i];

    'Initializing a value per thread, per instance
    Dim _scratchArrays =
        New ThreadLocal(Of Integer()())(Function() InitializeArrays())

    ' use the thread-local data
    Dim tempArr As Integer() = _scratchArrays.Value(i)
    ' ...
End Sub

Function InitializeArrays() As Integer()()
    Dim result(10)() As Integer
    ' Initialize the arrays on the current thread.
    ' ... 

    Return result
End Function

See also