Develop Reference

How to execute some code when a block exits due to "await"?

tldr: Is there a way to execute some code when an "await" causes a method call to return?
Suppose I log entry and exit of C# methods with an object whose Dispose() method logs the method's exit. For example
void DoWhatever()
{
using (LogMethodCall("DoWhatever")
{
// do whatever
}
}
That is, the method LogMethodCall() logs "DoWhatever entered" and then returns an object of type CallEnder whose Dispose() method logs "DoWhatever exiting". That works fine until await is used. For example...
async Task DoWhatever()
{
using (LogMethodCall("DoWhatever")
{
// do first part.
await Something();
// do second part.
}
}
The above code returns a Task to the caller when it hits the await, and the rest of the code (including the call to CallEnder.Dispose()) runs in that Task. My problem is that I want to log "DoWhatever exiting" when the await triggers the actual return, and not when CallEnder.Dispose() is finally called.
Is there a way to do that? Is there something like an event that's raised when await causes DoWhatever() to return? Maybe something to do with ExecutionContext or CallContext or TaskScheduler?
Note that I need to keep the "using (some_object)" pattern described in the above code. That pattern works well to log entry and exit of a block. I can change the implementation of some_object to detect when control returns from DoWhatever() to its caller, but I'd prefer not to change the implementation of DoWhatever(). Although I could if there's no other way.
ETA further clarification: I want to
Log when control exits from DoWhatever() and returns to its caller,
whether that's due to the await or due to the "natural" exit from
DoWhatever().
Do it in the same thread that called DoWhatever().
Preferably do it via the "using" clause shown above because that
pattern is already used in many places and works perfectly without
await.

Surprisingly it can be done, using AsyncLocal. AsyncLocal is like ThreadLocal except it flows through async code which might switch threads. It has a constructor which allows you to listen for value changes, and it even tells you the reason value has changed. It can be changed either because you explicitly set Value or if async context switch happens (in this case, Value changes to null/default when control leaves, and it changes back to original value when control returns). This allows us to detect when first await is reached, and not just first await but await that will introduce context switch (so, await Task.CompletedTask will not trigger context switch for example). So on first such switch Task will be returned back to caller.
Here is sample code:
public class Program {
public static void Main() {
var task = Test();
Console.WriteLine("Control flow got out of Test");
task.Wait();
}
static async Task Test() {
using (LogMethodCall()) {
await Task.Delay(1000);
Console.WriteLine("Finished using block");
}
}
static IDisposable LogMethodCall([CallerMemberName] string methodName = null) {
return new Logger(methodName);
}
private class Logger : IDisposable {
private readonly string _methodName;
private AsyncLocal<object> _alocal;
private bool _disposed;
public Logger(string methodName) {
Console.WriteLine($"{methodName} entered");
_methodName = methodName;
_alocal = new AsyncLocal<object>(OnChanged);
_alocal.Value = new object();
}
private void OnChanged(AsyncLocalValueChangedArgs<object> args) {
if (_disposed)
return;
// this property tells us that value changed because of context switch
if (args.ThreadContextChanged) {
Dispose();
}
}
public void Dispose() {
// prevent multiple disposal
if (_disposed)
return;
_disposed = true;
_alocal = null;
Console.WriteLine($"{_methodName} exited");
}
}
}
It outputs:
Test entered
Test exited
Control flow got out of Test
Finished using block
You can use the same code for regular functions too, because in them async local will never change and so dispose will happen as usual in the end of using block.

If you want to log when Something finished any synchronous actions and returns a Task, this is easy:
var task = Something();
/* log as you like */
await task;

Is there a way to abort a thread and then open it again with a new variable?

I want to open a thread to do the things it needs to do until a new command is given by the user. Then this thread should either close or receive a new command.
I have seen many posts that sending a variable to a running thread is hard, that is why I decided to kill the thread and start it again with the new variable.
I used the following post: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1327377 but without success. When I start the thread again (after it has done abort()) it gives me an exception: System.Threading.ThreadStateException.
private static Thread t = new Thread(Threading);
private static bool _running = false;
static void Main(string[] args)
{
[get arg]
if (CanRedo(arg))
{
if (t.IsAlive)
{
_running = false;
t.Interrupt();
if (t.Join(2000)) // with a '!' like in the post, abort() would not be called
{
t.Abort();
}
}
_running = true;
t.Start(arg); // gives System.Threading.ThreadStateException
}
}
private static void Threading(object obj)
{
_stopped = false;
string arg = obj.ToString();
while(_running)
{
if (bot._isDone)
{
ExecuteInstruction(arg);
}
}
}
What am I doing wrong?

I'm going to guess that you don't literally mean to abort the thread and start that same thread again. That's because if we start a thread to do some work we don't care which thread it is. If you cancel one thing and start something else, you probably don't care if it's the same thread or a different one. (In fact it's probably better if you don't care. If you need precise control over which thread is doing what then something has gotten complicated.) You can't "abort" a thread and restart it anyway.
Regarding Thread.Abort:
The Thread.Abort method should be used with caution. Particularly when you call it to abort a thread other than the current thread, you do not know what code has executed or failed to execute when the ThreadAbortException is thrown, nor can you be certain of the state of your application or any application and user state that it is responsible for preserving. For example, calling Thread.Abort may prevent static constructors from executing or prevent the release of unmanaged resources.
It's like firing an employee by teleporting them out of the building without warning. What if they were in the middle of a phone call or carrying a stack of papers? That might be okay in an emergency, but it wouldn't be a normal way to operate. It would be better to let the employee know that they need to wrap up what they're doing immediately. Put down what you're carrying. Tell the customer that you can't finish entering their order and they'll need to call back.
You're describing an expected behavior, so it would be better to cancel the thread in an orderly way.
That's where we might use a CancellationToken. In effect you're passing an object to the thread and telling it to check it from time to time to see if it should cancel what it's doing.
So you could start your thread like this:
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
using (var cts = new CancellationTokenSource())
{
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(DoSomethingOnAnotherThread, cts.Token);
// This is just for demonstration. It allows the other thread to run for a little while
// before it gets canceled.
Thread.Sleep(5000);
cts.Cancel();
}
}
private static void DoSomethingOnAnotherThread(object obj)
{
var cancellationToken = (CancellationToken) obj;
// This thread does its thing. Once in a while it does this:
if (cancellationToken.IsCancellationRequested)
{
return;
}
// Keep doing what it's doing.
}
}
Whatever the method is that's running in your separate thread, it's going to check IsCancellationRequested from time to time. If it's right in the middle of doing something it can stop. If it has unmanaged resources it can dispose them. But the important thing is that you can cancel what it does in a predictable way that leaves your application in a known state.
CancellationToken is one way to do this. In other really simple scenarios where the whole thing is happening inside one class you could also use a boolean field or property that acts as a flag to tell the thread if it needs to stop. The separate thread checks it to see if cancellation has been requested.
But using the CancellationToken makes it more manageable if you want to refactor and now the method executing on another thread is a in separate class. When you use a known pattern it makes it easier for the next person to understand what's going on.
Here's some documentation.

What about doing it this way:
private static Task t = null;
private static CancellationTokenSource cts = null;
static void Main(string[] args)
{
[get arg]
if (CanRedo(out var arg))
{
if (t != null)
{
cts.Cancel();
t.Wait();
}
// Set up a new task and matching cancellation token
cts = new CancellationTokenSource();
t = Task.Run(() => liveTask(arg, cts.Token));
}
}
private static void liveTask(object obj, CancellationToken ct)
{
string arg = obj.ToString();
while(!ct.IsCancellationRequested)
{
if (bot._isDone)
{
ExecuteInstruction(arg);
}
}
}
Tasks are cancellable, and I can see nothing in your thread that requires the same physical thread to be re-used.

Wait() method of a task bloks the Task

I am working in Xamarin where I have a Task that I start at the first menupage, go through several other menupages, and then want to wait for it's completion when opening an endpage. To do this I save the task in a static field when starting it:
private static Task myTask;
public static void sync(User user)
{
if (myTask== null || myTask.IsCompleted) {
myTaskStarted = true;
//Note: do not trust on the variable being filled in immediately after the start of the task. It takes a minute. Use the flag
myTask= AsyncMyTask(user);
}
}
And then later I call a method from another page that is simply supposed to wait for myTask to finnish by calling myTask.Wait() after doing some checks on myTask having been started and not being null. But I see that once I call myTask.Wait() myTask is stuck and no longer progresses in the debugger. It's stuck. If I replace myTask.Wait() by myTask.Wait(1000) myTask is frozen for the duration of the timeout. After the timeout it continues. This is not the behaviour that is described in the documentation. Can anyone explain why the AsyncMyTask method is blocked when you call myTask.Wait() from the UI thread?
As requested: the AwaitMyTask method:
public async static Task<Boolean> AwaitMyTask()
{
if(!myTaskStarted && myTask== null)
{
return false;
} else
{
while (myTask== null)
{
Task.Delay(10);
}
}
//Stuck on the line below
myTask.Wait();
myTaskStarted = false;
return myTask.IsCompleted;
}

Task.Wait is a synchronously awaiting the task which blocks the thread. Unless you can point to a documentation stating something else, I'd say that it's expected behavior as described in https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd235635(v=vs.110).aspx
Wait is a synchronization method that causes the calling thread to wait until the current task has completed. ...

c# do the equivalent of restarting a Task with some parameter

The main idea here is to fetch some data from somewhere, when it's fetched start writing it, and then prepare the next batch of data to be written, while waiting for the previous write to be complete.
I know that a Task cannot be restarted or reused (nor should it be), although I am trying to find a way to do something like this :
//The "WriteTargetData" method should take the "data" variable
//created in the loop below as a parameter
//WriteData basically do a shedload of mongodb upserts in a separate thread,
//it takes approx. 20-30 secs to run
var task = new Task(() => WriteData(somedata));
//GetData also takes some time.
foreach (var data in queries.Select(GetData))
{
if (task.Status != TaskStatus.Running)
{
//start task with "data" as a parameter
//continue the loop to prepare the next batch of data to be written
}
else
{
//wait for task to be completed
//"restart" task
//continue the loop to prepare the next batch of data to be written
}
}
Any suggestion appreciated ! Thanks. I don't necessarily want to use Task, I just think it might be the way to go.

This may be over simplifying your requirements, but would simply "waiting" for the previous task to complete work for you? You can use Task.WaitAny and Task.WaitAll to wait for previous operations to complete.
pseudo code:
// Method that makes calls to fetch and write data.
public async Task DoStuff()
{
Task currTask = null;
object somedata = await FetchData();
while (somedata != null)
{
// Wait for previous task.
if (currTask != null)
Task.WaitAny(currTask);
currTask = WriteData(somedata);
somedata = await FetchData();
}
}
// Whatever method fetches data.
public Task<object> FetchData()
{
var data = new object();
return Task.FromResult(data);
}
// Whatever method writes data.
public Task WriteData(object somedata)
{
return Task.Factory.StartNew(() => { /* write data */});
}

The Task class is not designed to be restarted. so you Need to create a new task and run the body with the same Parameters. Next i do not see where you start the task with the WriteData function in its body. That will property Eliminate the call of if (task.Status != TaskStatus.Running) There are AFAIK only the class Task and Thread where task is only the abstraction of an action that will be scheduled with the TaskScheduler and executed in different threads ( when we talking about the Common task Scheduler, the one you get when you call TaskFactory.Scheduler ) and the Number of the Threads are equal to the number of Processor Cores.
To you Business App. Why do you wait for the execution of WriteData? Would it be not a lot more easy to gater all data and than submit them into one big Write?

something like ?
public void Do()
{
var task = StartTask(500);
var array = new[] {1000, 2000, 3000};
foreach (var data in array)
{
if (task.IsCompleted)
{
task = StartTask(data);
}
else
{
task.Wait();
task = StartTask(data);
}
}
}
private Task StartTask(int data)
{
var task = new Task(DoSmth, data);
task.Start();
return task;
}
private void DoSmth(object time)
{
Thread.Sleep((int) time);
}

You can use a thread and an AutoResetEvent. I have code like this for several different threads in my program:
These are variable declarations that belong to the main program.
public AutoResetEvent StartTask = new AutoResetEvent(false);
public bool IsStopping = false;
public Thread RepeatingTaskThread;
Somewhere in your initialization code:
RepeatingTaskThread = new Thread( new ThreadStart( RepeatingTaskProcessor ) ) { IsBackground = true; };
RepeatingTaskThread.Start();
Then the method that runs the repeating task would look something like this:
private void RepeatingTaskProcessor() {
// Keep looping until the program is going down.
while (!IsStopping) {
// Wait to receive notification that there's something to process.
StartTask.WaitOne();
// Exit if the program is stopping now.
if (IsStopping) return;
// Execute your task
PerformTask();
}
}
If there are several different tasks you want to run, you can add a variable that would indicate which one to process and modify the logic in PerformTask to pick which one to run.
I know that it doesn't use the Task class, but there's more than one way to skin a cat & this will work.

What's the new C# await feature do? [closed]

Closed. This question needs to be more focused. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by editing this post.
Closed 6 years ago.
Improve this question
Can anyone explain what the await function does?

They just talked about this at PDC yesterday!
Await is used in conjunction with Tasks (parallel programming) in .NET. It's a keyword being introduced in the next version of .NET. It more or less lets you "pause" the execution of a method to wait for the Task to complete execution. Here's a brief example:
//create and run a new task
Task<DataTable> dataTask = new Task<DataTable>(SomeCrazyDatabaseOperation);
//run some other code immediately after this task is started and running
ShowLoaderControl();
StartStoryboard();
//this will actually "pause" the code execution until the task completes. It doesn't lock the thread, but rather waits for the result, similar to an async callback
// please so also note, that the task needs to be started before it can be awaited. Otherwise it will never return
dataTask.Start();
DataTable table = await dataTask;
//Now we can perform operations on the Task result, as if we're executing code after the async operation completed
listBoxControl.DataContext = table;
StopStoryboard();
HideLoaderControl();

Basically, the async and await keywords allow you to specify that execution of a method should stop at all usages of await, which mark asynchronous method calls, and then resume once the asynchronous operation is complete. This allows you to call a method in an app's main thread and handle complex work asynchronously, without the need to explicitly define threads and joins or blocking the app's main thread.
Think of it as being somewhat similar to a yield return statement in a method producing an IEnumerable. When the runtime hits the yield, it will basically save the method's current state, and return the value or reference being yielded. The next time IEnumerator.MoveNext() is called on the return object (which is generated internally by the runtime), the method's old state is restored to the stack and execution continues with the next line after the yield return as if we'd never left the method. Without this keyword, an IEnumerator type must be custom-defined to store state and handle the iteration requests, with methods that can become VERY complex indeed.
Similarly, a method marked as async must have at least one await. On an await, the runtime will save the current thread's state and call stack, make the asynchronous call, and unwind back to the runtime's message loop to handle the next message and keep the app responsive. When the asynchronous operation is complete, at the next scheduling opportunity, the call stack to up the async operation is pushed back in and continued as if the call was synchronous.
So, these two new keywords basically simplify the coding of asynchronous processes, much like yield return simplified the generation of custom enumerables. With a couple keywords and a little background knowledge, you can skip all the confusing and often error-prone details of a traditional asynchronous pattern. This will be INVALUABLE in pretty much any event-driven GUI app like Winforms, WPF of Silverlight.

The currently accepted answer is misleading.
await is not pausing anything.
First of all it can be used only in methods or lambdas marked as async and returning Task or void if you don't care having Task instance running in this method.
Here is an illustration:
internal class Program
{
private static void Main(string[] args)
{
var task = DoWork();
Console.WriteLine("Task status: " + task.Status);
Console.WriteLine("Waiting for ENTER");
Console.ReadLine();
}
private static async Task DoWork()
{
Console.WriteLine("Entered DoWork(). Sleeping 3");
// imitating time consuming code
// in a real-world app this should be inside task,
// so method returns fast
Thread.Sleep(3000);
await Task.Run(() =>
{
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
Console.WriteLine("async task iteration " + i);
// imitating time consuming code
Thread.Sleep(1000);
}
});
Console.WriteLine("Exiting DoWork()");
}
}
Output:
Entered DoWork(). Sleeping 3
async task iteration 0
Task status: WaitingForActivation
Waiting for ENTER
async task iteration 1
async task iteration 2
async task iteration 3
async task iteration 4
async task iteration 5
async task iteration 6
async task iteration 7
async task iteration 8
async task iteration 9
Exiting DoWork()

For anyone new to asynchronous programming in .NET, here's a (totally fake) analogy in a scenario you may be more familiar with - AJAX calls using JavaScript/jQuery. A simple jQuery AJAX post looks like this:
$.post(url, values, function(data) {
// AJAX call completed, do something with returned data here
});
The reason we process the results in a callback function is so we don't block the current thread while waiting for the AJAX call to return. Only when the response is ready will the callback get fired, freeing the current thread to do other things in the mean time.
Now, if JavaScript supported the await keyword (which of course it doesn't (yet!)), you could achieve the same with this:
var data = await $.post(url, values);
// AJAX call completed, do something with returned data here
That's a lot cleaner, but it sure looks like we introduced synchronous, blocking code. But the (fake) JavaScript compiler would have taken everything after await and wired it into a callback, so at runtime the second example would behave just like the first.
It may not seem like it's saving you much work, but when it comes to things like exception handling and synchronization contexts, the compiler is actually doing a lot of heavy lifting for you. For more, I'd recommend the FAQs followed by Stephen Cleary's blog series.

If I had to implement it in Java it would look some thing like this:
/**
* #author Ilya Gazman
*/
public abstract class SynchronizedTask{
private ArrayList<Runnable> listeners = new ArrayList<Runnable>();
private static final ThreadPoolExecutor threadPoolExecutor = new ThreadPoolExecutor(6, 6, 0, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS, new ArrayBlockingQueue<Runnable>(1000));
public final void await(Runnable listener){
synchronized (this) {
listeners.add(listener);
}
}
public void excecute(){
onExcecute();
for (int i = listeners.size() - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
Runnable runnable;
synchronized (this) {
runnable = listeners.remove(i);
}
threadPoolExecutor.execute(runnable);
}
}
protected abstract void onExcecute();
}
Your application would use it like this:
public class Test{
private Job job = new Job();
public Test() {
craeteSomeJobToRunInBackground();
methode1();
methode2();
}
private void methode1(){
System.out.println("Running methode 1");
job.await(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
System.out.println("Continue to running methode 1");
}
});
}
private void methode2(){
System.out.println("Running methode 2");
}
private void craeteSomeJobToRunInBackground() {
new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
job.excecute();
}
}).start();
}
private class Job extends SynchronizedTask{
#Override
protected void onExcecute() {
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
}
catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("Job is done");
}
}
}