Proper way to implement a never ending task. (Timers vs Task)

Question

So, my app needs to perform an action almost continuously (with a pause of 10 seconds or so between each run) for as long as the app is running or a cancellation is requested. The work it needs to do has the possibility of taking up to 30 seconds.

Is it better to use a System.Timers.Timer and use AutoReset to make sure it doesn't perform the action before the previous "tick" has completed.

Or should I use a general Task in LongRunning mode with a cancellation token, and have a regular infinite while loop inside it calling the action doing the work with a 10 second Thread.Sleep between calls? As for the async/await model, I'm not sure it would be appropriate here as I don't have any return values from the work.

CancellationTokenSource wtoken;
Task task;

void StopWork()
{
    wtoken.Cancel();

    try 
    {
        task.Wait();
    } catch(AggregateException) { }
}

void StartWork()
{
    wtoken = new CancellationTokenSource();

    task = Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
    {
        while (true)
        {
            wtoken.Token.ThrowIfCancellationRequested();
            DoWork();
            Thread.Sleep(10000);
        }
    }, wtoken, TaskCreationOptions.LongRunning);
}

void DoWork()
{
    // Some work that takes up to 30 seconds but isn't returning anything.
}

or just use a simple timer while using its AutoReset property, and call .Stop() to cancel it?

Answer 1

I'd use TPL Dataflow for this (since you're using .NET 4.5 and it uses Task internally). You can easily create an ActionBlock<TInput> which posts items to itself after it's processed it's action and waited an appropriate amount of time.

First, create a factory that will create your never-ending task:

ITargetBlock<DateTimeOffset> CreateNeverEndingTask(
    Action<DateTimeOffset> action, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
    // Validate parameters.
    if (action == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("action");

    // Declare the block variable, it needs to be captured.
    ActionBlock<DateTimeOffset> block = null;

    // Create the block, it will call itself, so
    // you need to separate the declaration and
    // the assignment.
    // Async so you can wait easily when the
    // delay comes.
    block = new ActionBlock<DateTimeOffset>(async now => {
        // Perform the action.
        action(now);

        // Wait.
        await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10), cancellationToken).
            // Doing this here because synchronization context more than
            // likely *doesn't* need to be captured for the continuation
            // here.  As a matter of fact, that would be downright
            // dangerous.
            ConfigureAwait(false);

        // Post the action back to the block.
        block.Post(DateTimeOffset.Now);
    }, new ExecutionDataflowBlockOptions { 
        CancellationToken = cancellationToken
    });

    // Return the block.
    return block;
}

I've chosen the ActionBlock<TInput> to take a DateTimeOffset structure; you have to pass a type parameter, and it might as well pass some useful state (you can change the nature of the state, if you want).

Also, note that the ActionBlock<TInput> by default processes only one item at a time, so you're guaranteed that only one action will be processed (meaning, you won't have to deal with reentrancy when it calls the Post extension method back on itself).

I've also passed the CancellationToken structure to both the constructor of the ActionBlock<TInput> and to the Task.Delay method call; if the process is cancelled, the cancellation will take place at the first possible opportunity.

From there, it's an easy refactoring of your code to store the ITargetBlock<DateTimeoffset> interface implemented by ActionBlock<TInput> (this is the higher-level abstraction representing blocks that are consumers, and you want to be able to trigger the consumption through a call to the Post extension method):

CancellationTokenSource wtoken;
ActionBlock<DateTimeOffset> task;

Your StartWork method:

void StartWork()
{
    // Create the token source.
    wtoken = new CancellationTokenSource();

    // Set the task.
    task = CreateNeverEndingTask(now => DoWork(), wtoken.Token);

    // Start the task.  Post the time.
    task.Post(DateTimeOffset.Now);
}

And then your StopWork method:

void StopWork()
{
    // CancellationTokenSource implements IDisposable.
    using (wtoken)
    {
        // Cancel.  This will cancel the task.
        wtoken.Cancel();
    }

    // Set everything to null, since the references
    // are on the class level and keeping them around
    // is holding onto invalid state.
    wtoken = null;
    task = null;
}

Why would you want to use TPL Dataflow here? A few reasons:

Separation of concerns

The CreateNeverEndingTask method is now a factory that creates your "service" so to speak. You control when it starts and stops, and it's completely self-contained. You don't have to interweave state control of the timer with other aspects of your code. You simply create the block, start it, and stop it when you're done.

More efficient use of threads/tasks/resources

The default scheduler for the blocks in TPL data flow is the same for a Task, which is the thread pool. By using the ActionBlock<TInput> to process your action, as well as a call to Task.Delay, you're yielding control of the thread that you were using when you're not actually doing anything. Granted, this actually leads to some overhead when you spawn up the new Task that will process the continuation, but that should be small, considering you aren't processing this in a tight loop (you're waiting ten seconds between invocations).

If the DoWork function actually can be made awaitable (namely, in that it returns a Task), then you can (possibly) optimize this even more by tweaking the factory method above to take a Func<DateTimeOffset, CancellationToken, Task> instead of an Action<DateTimeOffset>, like so:

ITargetBlock<DateTimeOffset> CreateNeverEndingTask(
    Func<DateTimeOffset, CancellationToken, Task> action, 
    CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
    // Validate parameters.
    if (action == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("action");

    // Declare the block variable, it needs to be captured.
    ActionBlock<DateTimeOffset> block = null;

    // Create the block, it will call itself, so
    // you need to separate the declaration and
    // the assignment.
    // Async so you can wait easily when the
    // delay comes.
    block = new ActionBlock<DateTimeOffset>(async now => {
        // Perform the action.  Wait on the result.
        await action(now, cancellationToken).
            // Doing this here because synchronization context more than
            // likely *doesn't* need to be captured for the continuation
            // here.  As a matter of fact, that would be downright
            // dangerous.
            ConfigureAwait(false);

        // Wait.
        await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10), cancellationToken).
            // Same as above.
            ConfigureAwait(false);

        // Post the action back to the block.
        block.Post(DateTimeOffset.Now);
    }, new ExecutionDataflowBlockOptions { 
        CancellationToken = cancellationToken
    });

    // Return the block.
    return block;
}

Of course, it would be good practice to weave the CancellationToken through to your method (if it accepts one), which is done here.

That means you would then have a DoWorkAsync method with the following signature:

Task DoWorkAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken);

You'd have to change (only slightly, and you're not bleeding out separation of concerns here) the StartWork method to account for the new signature passed to the CreateNeverEndingTask method, like so:

void StartWork()
{
    // Create the token source.
    wtoken = new CancellationTokenSource();

    // Set the task.
    task = CreateNeverEndingTask((now, ct) => DoWorkAsync(ct), wtoken.Token);

    // Start the task.  Post the time.
    task.Post(DateTimeOffset.Now, wtoken.Token);
}