What is the best way to lock cache in asp.net?

Here's the basic pattern:

• Check the cache for the value, return if its available
• If the value is not in the cache, then implement a lock
• Inside the lock, check the cache again, you might have been blocked
• Perform the value look up and cache it
• Release the lock

In code, it looks like this:

private static object ThisLock = new object();

public string GetFoo()
{

  // try to pull from cache here

  lock (ThisLock)
  {
    // cache was empty before we got the lock, check again inside the lock

    // cache is still empty, so retreive the value here

    // store the value in the cache here
  }

  // return the cached value here

}

For completeness a full example would look something like this.

private static object ThisLock = new object();
...
object dataObject = Cache["globalData"];
if( dataObject == null )
{
    lock( ThisLock )
    {
        dataObject = Cache["globalData"];

        if( dataObject == null )
        {
            //Get Data from db
             dataObject = GlobalObj.GetData();
             Cache["globalData"] = dataObject;
        }
    }
}
return dataObject;

Craig Shoemaker has made an excellent show on asp.net caching: http://polymorphicpodcast.com/shows/webperformance/

I saw one pattern recently called Correct State Bag Access Pattern, which seemed to touch on this.

I modified it a bit to be thread-safe.

http://weblogs.asp.net/craigshoemaker/archive/2008/08/28/asp-net-caching-and-performance.aspx

private static object _listLock = new object();

public List List() {
    string cacheKey = "customers";
    List myList = Cache[cacheKey] as List;
    if(myList == null) {
        lock (_listLock) {
            myList = Cache[cacheKey] as List;
            if (myList == null) {
                myList = DAL.ListCustomers();
                Cache.Insert(cacheKey, mList, null, SiteConfig.CacheDuration, TimeSpan.Zero);
            }
        }
    }
    return myList;
}

This article from CodeGuru explains various cache locking scenarios as well as some best practices for ASP.NET cache locking:

Synchronizing Cache Access in ASP.NET