Starting Tasks In foreach Loop Uses Value of Last Item

Question

I am making a first attempt at playing with the new Tasks, but something is happening that I don't understand.

First, the code, which is pretty straight-forward. I pass in a list of paths to some image files, and attempt to add a task to process each of them:

public Boolean AddPictures(IList<string> paths)
{
    Boolean result = (paths.Count > 0);
    List<Task> tasks = new List<Task>(paths.Count);

    foreach (string path in paths)
    {
        var task = Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
            {
                Boolean taskResult = ProcessPicture(path);
                return taskResult;
            });
        task.ContinueWith(t => result &= t.Result);
        tasks.Add(task);
    }

    Task.WaitAll(tasks.ToArray());

    return result;
}

I've found that if I just let this run with, say, a list of 3 paths in a unit test, all three tasks use the last path in the provided list. If I step through (and slow down the processing of the loop), each path from the loop is used.

Can somebody please explain what is happening, and why? Possible workarounds?

Answer 1

You're closing over the loop variable. Don't do that. Take a copy instead:

foreach (string path in paths)
{
    string pathCopy = path;
    var task = Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
        {
            Boolean taskResult = ProcessPicture(pathCopy);
            return taskResult;
        });
    // See note at end of post
    task.ContinueWith(t => result &= t.Result);
    tasks.Add(task);
}

Your current code is capturing path - not the value of it when you create the task, but the variable itself. That variable changes value each time you go through the loop - so it can easily change by the time your delegate is called.

By taking a copy of the variable, you're introducing a new variable each time you go through the loop - when you capture that variable, it won't be changed in the next iteration of the loop.

Eric Lippert has a pair of blog posts which go into this in a lot more detail: part 1; part 2.

Don't feel bad - this catches almost everyone out :(

---

Note about this line:

task.ContinueWith(t => result &= t.Result);

As pointed out in comments, this isn't thread-safe. Multiple threads could execute it at the same time, potentially stamping on each other's results. I haven't added locking or anything similar as it would distract from the main issue that the question is interested, namely variable capture. However, it's worth being aware of.