I want to simplify out repository code and want to use Funcs to provide common functionality.
The problem now is based on this code:
namespace Test
{
public class Demo
{
public Task<Person> GetAsync1(Guid id)
{
return ExecuteAsync(context => context.Persons.GetAsync(id));
}
public async Task<Person> GetAsync2(Guid id)
{
return await ExecuteAsync(async context => await context.Persons.GetAsync(id));
}
public Task<Person> GetAsync3(Guid id)
{
return ExecuteAsync(async context => await context.Persons.GetAsync(id));
}
public Task<TOut> ExecuteAsync(Func<Context, Task<TOut>> func)
{
using(var context = new Context())
{
return func(context);
}
}
}
}
The problem here for me is now how to call the async func correctly.
Which of those three Get methods is correct?
With the first one I think I get a deadlock because it hangs at this point. Number 2 works fine but I think two async/awaits here are not correct, because of the Task re-wrapping!?
Actually all 3 GetAsync implmentations where fine to do (personally I would use GetAsync1), what you have is a bug in ExecuteAsync
public async Task<TOut> ExecuteAsync(Func<Context, Task<TOut>> func)
{
using(var context = new Context())
{
return await func(context);
}
}
By awaiting the output of func you do not dispose of the context until the function has completed it's work.
Related
In the Call asynchronous method in constructor? question is no answer that, starts the async Operation in the constructor and store the Task in a member and an awaits it before using the resource:
public class DeviceAccess
{
private readonly Task<Container> containerTask;
public DeviceAccess(Database database)
{
containerTask = GetContainer(database);
}
private async Task<Container> GetContainer(Database database)
{
var conatinerResponse = await database.CreateContainerIfNotExistsAsync("Device");
return conatinerResponse.Container;
}
public async Task<Device> GetDevice(string deviceId)
{
var container = await containerTask;
return await doSomething(container);
}
}
In my case every Operation needs the resource, so I see no advantage to use some lazy loading.
Is it valid to start a async Operation in a constructor or can result this into problems?
The biggest problem I can see here is that [Value]Task[<T>] is an API that enables async, not a promise to be async; just because CreateContainerIfNotExistsAsync is named *Async and returns Task<T> - that doesn't actually mean it is async - it could run synchronously and return a result via Task.FromResult (aka "async over sync"). If you're not concerned about that problem, then fine I guess. But I wonder whether an OpenAsync() method that you call after construction would be more appropriate, i.e.
public class DeviceAccess
{
private Container _container;
public DeviceAccess() {}
public async ValueTask OpenAsync(Database database) {
if (_container == null)
_container = await GetContainerAsync(database);
}
public async Task<Device> GetDeviceAsync(string deviceId)
{
var container = _container ?? throw new InvalidOperationException("not open");
return await doSomething(container); // might be able to inline the "await" here
}
}
I have a .NET CORE 2 backend. In one of my controller endpoints, I'm creating invitations to be sent out via email. This seems to be a huge bottleneck on the endpoint and after thinking about it, I don't really need to wait for these invitations. If the email fails to send out, I can't really do anything about it anyway.
If I don't do await sendFn() would it essentially be a fire and forget method? I was reading on another stackoverflow thread that I'd have to do sendFn().ContinueWith(t => throw(t)) to be able to catch the exception since it'll be in another thread.
I have similar mailing functions around the code base. They each do slightly different things, but is there a service fn I can do to wrap these to make them fire and forget? I think some places I can just not use await (if that works), but some things alter the database context so if I don't await them I can potentially run into a case where something is accessing the same db context.
[HttpPost]
public async Task<IActionResult> CreateEvent([FromBody] Event val)
{
_ctx.Event.Add(val);
await _ctx.SaveChangesAsync();
await SendInvitations(val); // fn in question
return Ok();
}
public async Task SendInvitation(Event event)
{
forEach (var person in event.people)
{
await _ctx.Invitation.Add(person); // This shouldn't happen while another iteration or some other async code elsewhere is using the db ctx.
_ctx.SaveChangesAsync();
await _mailService.SendMail(person.email,"you have been invited"); // don't really need to await this.
}
}
I'm posting to my server with data about an event. After I create and save the event to the database, I go and create invitations for each person. These invitations are also database items. I then send out an email. I'm mostly worried that if I drop the await, then when I'm creating invitations, it may conflict with db context elsewhere or the next iteration.
To get your code to compile and run I had to make these changes:
public async Task<IActionResult> CreateEvent(Event val)
{
_ctx.Event.Add(val);
await _ctx.SaveChangesAsync();
await SendInvitation(val);
return Ok();
}
public async Task SendInvitation(Event #event)
{
foreach (var person in #event.people)
{
await _ctx.Invitation.Add(person);
await _ctx.SaveChangesAsync();
await _mailService.SendMail(person.email, "you have been invited");
}
}
I also had to write this harness code:
public OK Ok() => new OK();
public class Event
{
public List<Person> people = new List<Person>();
}
public class Person
{
public string email;
}
public interface IActionResult { }
public class OK : IActionResult { }
public class Invitation
{
public Task Add(Person person) => Task.Run(() => { });
}
public static class _ctx
{
public static List<Event> Event = new List<Event>();
public static Invitation Invitation = new Invitation();
public static Task SaveChangesAsync() { return Task.Run(() => { }); }
}
public static class _mailService
{
public static Task SendMail(string email, string message) { return Task.Run(() => { }); }
}
Then I updated SendInvitation like this:
public async Task SendInvitation(Event #event)
{
Thread.Sleep(2000);
foreach (var person in #event.people)
{
await _ctx.Invitation.Add(person);
await _ctx.SaveChangesAsync();
await _mailService.SendMail(person.email, "you have been invited");
}
Console.WriteLine("Done `SendInvitation`.");
}
Now, I can run it all like so:
var e = new Event();
e.people.Add(new Person() { email = "foo#bar.com" });
CreateEvent(e).ContinueWith(t => Console.WriteLine("Done `CreateEvent`."));
Console.WriteLine("Done `Main`.");
That outputs:
Done `Main`.
Then 2 seconds later:
Done `SendInvitation`.
Done `CreateEvent`.
If I simply change CreateEvent to this:
public async Task<IActionResult> CreateEvent(Event val)
{
_ctx.Event.Add(val);
await _ctx.SaveChangesAsync();
Task.Run(() => SendInvitation(val));
return Ok();
}
Then I get this output:
Done `Main`.
Done `CreateEvent`.
Then 2 seconds later:
Done `SendInvitation`.
That seems to be what you want.
The short answer is that you have no guarantees that that the execution of that code will complete.
That's why ASP.NET Core has infrastructure for background work: Implementing background tasks in .NET Core 2.x webapps or microservices with IHostedService and the BackgroundService class
I am building an ASP.NET Core API. I have an action that I want to be essentially identical across a set of controllers. So, I created the EntityController that those controllers inherit from as below.
Note: The ellipsis used in both classes below represent many more actions and their related services following the same pattern omitted for simplicity.
public class EntityController : BaseController
{
protected readonly SeedService SeedService;
protected EntityController(IMemoryCache memoryCache, SeedService seedService) : base(memoryCache)
{
SeedService = seedService;
}
[HttpGet]
public async Task<IActionResult> Seed()
{
var controllerName = ControllerContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString();
return await GetSeed(controllerName);
}
private async Task<IActionResult> GetSeed(string controllerName)
{
switch (controllerName)
{
case "lists":
return await MemoryCache.GetOrCreateAsync(CacheKeys.Entry, async entry =>
{
entry.SlidingExpiration = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(3);
return Json(await SeedService.GetAllFilterLists());
});
case "languages":
return await MemoryCache.GetOrCreateAsync(CacheKeys.Entry, async entry =>
{
entry.SlidingExpiration = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(3);
return Json(await SeedService.GetAllLanguages());
});
...
default:
return await Task.FromResult(NotFound());
}
}
}
Here are the service methods that these actions call:
public class SeedService
{
private readonly FilterListsDbContext filterListsDbContext;
public SeedService(FilterListsDbContext filterListsDbContext)
{
this.filterListsDbContext = filterListsDbContext;
}
public async Task<IEnumerable<FilterListSeedDto>> GetAllFilterLists()
{
return await filterListsDbContext.Set<FilterList>().ProjectTo<FilterListSeedDto>().ToListAsync();
}
public async Task<IEnumerable<LanguageSeedDto>> GetAllLanguages()
{
return await filterListsDbContext.Set<Language>().ProjectTo<LanguageSeedDto>().ToListAsync();
}
...
}
How can I use generics (or alternative) to reduce this copy/paste duplication? I tried using something like a Dictionary<string, Type> to lookup the Type dynamically from the controller name, but I am not sure how the resulting GetAll<T>() method in SeedService would look? Below doesn't work because the method depends on the types of both the entity and DTO models for the AutoMapper projection.
public async Task<IEnumerable<T>> GetAll<T>()
{
return await filterListsDbContext.Set<T>().ProjectTo<T>().ToListAsync();
}
You could easily remove all that boilerplate code into a single generic method:
public async Task<IEnumerable<TResult>> GetAll<TEntry, TResult>() where TEntry : class
{
return await filterListsDbContext.Set<TEntry>()
.ProjectTo<TResult>()
.ToListAsync();
}
Since you are returning an IEnumerable, you may want to change to .ToArrayAsync(). Also, since you are projecting to non-entities, and hence changes won't be picked up by the context, you could go further and add .AsNoTracking() to avoid adding the entities to the context:
public async Task<IEnumerable<TResult>> GetAll<TEntry, TResult>() where TEntry : class
{
return await filterListsDbContext.Set<TEntry>()
.AsNoTracking()
.ProjectTo<TResult>()
.ToArrayAsync();
}
As I mentioned in the comments, you could put that in a base controller and do something like this:
public class BaseController<TEntity, TViewModel>
{
public async Task<IEnumerable<TViewModel>> GetAll()
{
return await filterListsDbContext.Set<TEntity>()
.AsNoTracking()
.ProjectTo<TViewModel>()
.ToArrayAsync();
}
}
public class LanguageController : BaseController<Language, LanguageSeedDto>
{
(in some action)
var data = await GetAll();
}
I have a WebApi controller which calls a third party API in asynchronous mode.
All works ok and now I want to sort the result in a separate action method.
Now, when I call the API, the callback with the result never happens after running "await client.GetAsycn(...)" in the DAL. What am I missing?
This is my API controller:
// GET api/lookup
[ResponseType(typeof(RestaurantModel))]
public async Task<IHttpActionResult> Get(string outcode)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(outcode)) throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(outcode));
var result = await _repository.GetRestaurantsByOutcode(outcode);
return Ok(new RestaurantModel()
{
Result = result
});
}
// GET api/sorted
[System.Web.Http.Route("~/api/sorted")]
public List<Restaurant> GetSorted(string outcode)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(outcode)) throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(outcode));
return _repository.GetSortedRestaurantsByOutcode(outcode);
}
This is my repository with a new method to sort the result:
public class RestaurantRepository : IRestaurantRepository
{
private readonly IContext _context;
public RestaurantRepository(IContext context)
{
_context = context;
}
public Task<ApiResult> GetRestaurantsByOutcode(string outcode)
{
return _context.GetRestaurantsByOutcode(outcode);
}
public List<Restaurant> GetSortedRestaurantsByOutcode(string outcode)
{
return _context.GetRestaurantsByOutcode(outcode).Result.Restaurants
.OrderBy(x => x.Name).ToList();
}
}
This is my DAL to call the third party API:
public async Task<ApiResult> GetRestaurantsByOutcode(string outcode)
{
using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
ConfigureHttpClient(client);
var response = await client.GetAsync(
$"restaurants?q={WebUtility.UrlEncode(outcode)}");
return response.IsSuccessStatusCode
? await response.Content.ReadAsAsync<ApiResult>()
: null;
}
}
You have a mix-match of sometimes you use async/await and other times you don't. Async / await (can and does by default) ensures that the call resumes on the calling thread so the context is resulted. You need to allign your code so you make use of the async/await in the whole stack. Otherwise you are creating a deadlock for your self.
[System.Web.Http.Route("~/api/sorted")]
// missing async in signature (not good if you are calling it with await in your controller)
public async Task<List<Restaurant>> GetSorted(string outcode)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(outcode)) throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(outcode));
// added await in call
return await _repository.GetSortedRestaurantsByOutcode(outcode);
}
DAL
public class RestaurantRepository : IRestaurantRepository
{
private readonly IContext _context;
public RestaurantRepository(IContext context)
{
_context = context;
}
// added async and await
public async Task<ApiResult> GetRestaurantsByOutcode(string outcode)
{
return await _context.GetRestaurantsByOutcode(outcode);
}
// added async and await
public async Task<List<Restaurant>> GetSortedRestaurantsByOutcode(string outcode)
{
// here you were not using await but then using result even though you were calling into a method marked as async which in turn used an await. this is where you deadlocked but this the fix.
return (await _context.GetRestaurantsByOutcode(outcode)).Restaurants
.OrderBy(x => x.Name).ToList();
}
}
I often write code that has convenience methods which basically wrap other methods. Here's a simple example:
public class WithoutAsync
{
public static ReadOnlyCollection<Response> GetResponses(IEnumerable<Request> fromRequests)
{
var ret = new List<Response>();
foreach (Request r in fromRequests)
{
ret.Add(new Response());
}
return ret.AsReadOnly();
}
//convenience method
public static Response GetResponse(Request fromRequest)
{
return GetResponses(new Request[] {fromRequest})[0];
}
}
Now I want to await long-running operations but I can't quite figure out how to retrofit this methodology for use with TPL:
public class WithAsync
{
public static async Task<ReadOnlyCollection<Response>> GetResponses(IEnumerable<Request> fromRequests)
{
var awaitableResponses = new List<Task<Response>>();
foreach (Request r in fromRequests)
{
awaitableResponses.Add(Task.Run<Response>(async () =>
{
await Task.Delay(10000); //simulate some long running async op.
return new Response();
}));
}
return new List<Response>(await Task.WhenAll(awaitableResponses)).AsReadOnly();
}
//convenience method
public static Task<Response> GetResponse(Request fromRequest)
{
return GetResponse(new Request[] { fromRequest });
}
}
The convenience method above obviously won't work because it's trying to return a Task<ReadOnlyCollection<Response>> when it really needs to return a Task<Response>.
This works:
//convenience method
public static Task<Response> GetResponse(Request fromRequest)
{
return new Task<Response>(new Func<Response>(() => GetResponse(new Request[] { fromRequest }).Result[0]));
}
but it seems really awkward, and more importantly, it blocks on .Result[0] which is potentially on a UI thread.
Is there any good way to accomplish what I'm trying to do?
You're trying to avoid making that "convenience method" async, but there's no reason to do that.
What you want is to call the other method, wait until there are responses and then get the first and only one. You can do that by making it async and using await:
async Task<Response> GetResponseAsync(Request fromRequest)
{
var responses = await GetResponsesAsync(new[] { fromRequest });
return responses.Single();
}
Although a better solution in this specific case is to switch things around and have the single GetResponse actually do that work of a single request, and have the multiple GetRsponses call it instead:
async Task<ReadOnlyCollection<Response>> GetResponsesAsync(IEnumerable<Request> fromRequests)
{
return (await Task.WhenAll(fromRequests.Select(GetResponse))).ToList().AsReadOnly();
}
async Task<Response> GetResponseAsync(Request fromRequest)
{
await Task.Delay(10000); //simulate some long running async op.
return new Response();
}
Notes:
I know it's an example, but there's probably no reason to use Task.Run instead of a simple async call.
The convention is to name async methods with an "Async" suffix (i.e. GetResponseAsync).
I've also pluralized the name of the method that returns a collection.
I'm still sticking with I3arnon's answer because it's a well-written, informative answer, but I'd like to submit my own answer because I realized that I was almost there. Here's the async convenience method I was struggling to find:
//convenience method
public static async Task<Response> GetResponse(Request fromRequest)
{
return (await GetResponses(new Request[] { fromRequest }))[0];
}