Question

I need to perform periodically a certain task in my asp.net app so did like this:

protected void Application_Start()
{
    Worker.Start();
}

...
 public static class Worker
 {
   public static void Start()
   {
     ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(o => Work());
   }
   public static void Work()
   {
      while (true)
      {
          Thread.Sleep(1200000);
          //do stuff
      }
    }
}

is this approach good ?

I saw a blog about the badge awarding on this site is done using an asp.net cache hack:
https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/07/easy-background-tasks-in-aspnet/

Answer 1

You can use Timer class for task like this. I’m using this class in my own ASP.NET chat module for closing rooms after some expiration time and it works fine.
And I think, it’s better approach than using Thread.Sleep

Below example code:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Threading;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Worker.Start();
            Thread.Sleep(2000);
        }

        public static class Worker
        {
            private static Timer timer;

            public static void Start()
            {
                //Work(new object());
                int period = 1000;
                timer = new Timer(new TimerCallback(Work), null, period, period);
            }

            public static void Work(object stateInfo)
            {
                TextWriter tw = new StreamWriter(@"w:\date.txt");

                // write a line of text to the file
                tw.WriteLine(DateTime.Now);

                // close the stream
                tw.Close();
            }

        }
    }
}