Question

I have actions that return void. but I need the call to keep the current scope open while it runs.

    public class CancellationHelper
{
    CancellationTokenSource _cts;

    public void Run(Action<CancellationToken> action)
    {
        if (_cts != null)
        {
            return;
        }
        using (_cts = new CancellationTokenSource())
        {
            action(_cts.Token);
        }
    }
}

if the action is async, the _cts will be disposed before the method completes. the return type is void, so I can’t just await it… I’ve read you are supposed to avoid Task.Run and favor async/await, but I don’t see how to do this for using clauses.

Is await Task.Run(action); dirty? is this spinning up another ‘task’ or thread to wait for something that spins up a task or thread?

Answer 1

It sounds like action is an async void method.
Don’t do that.
It is impossible to find out when an async void method finishes.

Instead, you need to make your method accept a Func<Task>.
You can then write await action();.