Race condition in c# static constructor

c#, race-condition, static-constructor

Solution

The static constructor is called only once per AppDomain. ECMA-335 states that the CLI shall guarantee that:

"A type initializer shall be executed exactly once for any given type, unless explicitly called by user code."

And i haven't heard of a convenient way to call type initializers in C#.

You could only run into problems if you create circular dependencies between Type initializers. See here for an interesting article on that issue: https://msmvps.com/blogs/jon_skeet/archive/2012/04/07/type-initializer-circular-dependencies.aspx)

Problem

I was debating with a friend who states that the static constructor could give way to a race condition as the static constructor could be called multiple times. It seems this could only happen in high volume multi-threaded environments. Is that even possible? I couldn't find any documentation to prove him wrong. Does anyone have any insight on this? Thanks!

Original source

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