.NET Parallel Programming

All about Async/Await, System.Threading.Tasks, System.Collections.Concurrent, System.Linq, and more…

.NET 4.5 - .NET Parallel Programming

Async/Await FAQ

April 12, 2012 Apr 12, 2012 04/12/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
From time to time, I receive questions from developers which highlight either a need for more information about the new “async” and “await” keywords in C# and Visual Basic. I’ve been cataloguing these questions, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to share my answers to them.Conceptual OverviewWhere can ...

Are deadlocks still possible with await?

April 12, 2012 Apr 12, 2012 04/12/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
Developers familiar with parallel programming are also familiar with a wide range of potential problems that can occur when practicing the art.  One of the most well-known issues is “deadlock,” where two or more operations are waiting on each other to complete in a manner such that none of them will be able to complete.I&rsquo...

Overriding Stream Asynchrony

April 6, 2012 Apr 6, 2012 04/6/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
In .NET 4.5 Beta, the Stream class provides multiple virtual methods related to reading and writing: As a developer deriving from Stream, it’s helpful to understand what the base implementations do and when you can and should override them.Read, Write, FlushThe Read, Write, and Flush methods are the core synchronous ...

Do I need to dispose of Tasks?

March 25, 2012 Mar 25, 2012 03/25/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
I get this question a lot: “Task implements IDisposable and exposes a Dispose method.  Does that mean I should dispose of all of my tasks?” SummaryHere’s my short answer to this question: “No.  Don’t bother disposing of your tasks.”Here’s my medium-length answer: “No.  Don&...

Are you using TPL Dataflow? We’d love to know!

March 6, 2012 Mar 6, 2012 03/6/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
Are you using the new System.Threading.Tasks.Dataflow.dll library, either from its CTPs or from the .NET 4.5 Developer Preview or Beta?  We'd love to hear about it, and if you have time, what your experiences have been (good or bad).  What kind of solution are you building, and how are you using TPL Dataflow in it?  Has the ...

Implementing a simple ForEachAsync, part 2

March 5, 2012 Mar 5, 2012 03/5/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
After my previous post, I received several emails and comments from folks asking why I chose to implement ForEachAsync the way I did.  My goal with that post wasn’t to prescribe a particular approach to iteration, but rather to answer a question I’d received… obviously, however, I didn’t provide enough background...

Implementing a simple ForEachAsync

March 4, 2012 Mar 4, 2012 03/4/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
Jon Skeet recently asked me how I might go about implementing the following “asynchronous ForEach” behavior: Given what we now know about SemaphoreSlim from my previous post, here’s one way to achieve this: public static Task ForEachAsync<TSource, TResult>(     this IEnumerable<TSource...