Question

I have something like this:

private void DoSomething()
{
    System.Console.WriteLine("Creating Foo");
    Foo result = new Foo();

    DoSomethingAsync();

    System.Console.WriteLine("Returning Foo");
    return result;
}


private async void DoSomethingAsync()
{
    // The following task takes a long time, but is not CPU intensive
    await TaskEx.Run(() =>
    {
         // code lives here... removed for this example
    });
}

Since I don’t hit the CPU much, I don’t need a thread. What can I use instead of Run to avoid the creation of a thread?

Answer 1

I think you’re misunderstanding the intent of the Task Asynchrony Pattern here. What you’re doing is probably better handled by ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem which will reuse a worker thread from the process’s pool, only creating one if necessary.

The TAP allows you to break a task into “chunks” of work that can be processed incrementally, but it does not directly provide a means to say “this is a background task”.