Question

I’m using a backgroundworker to run a separate thread, however it seems that my program is halting after the call to RunWorkerAssync().

Here’s where I set everything up:

   BackgroundWorker worker = new BackgroundWorker();
   worker.WorkerSupportsCancellation = false;
   worker.WorkerReportsProgress = true;
   worker.DoWork += new DoWorkEventHandler(bw_DoWork);
   worker.ProgressChanged += new ProgressChangedEventHandler(bw_ProgressChanged);
   worker.RunWorkerCompleted += new RunWorkerCompletedEventHandler(bw_RunWorkerCompleted);
   worker.RunWorkerAsync();
   console.writeline("I'm Done!");

And here is my bw_DoWork function:

private void bw_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
    {

        System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(5000);

    }

And my bw_RunWorkerCompleted and bw_ProgressChanged:

private void bw_RunWorkerCompleted(object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e)
    {
        if ((e.Cancelled == true))
        {

        }

        else if (!(e.Error == null))
        {

        }

        else
        {

        }
    }

private void bw_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
    {

    }

The problem I am having is that sure enough, I don’t get the console output until 5 seconds after it runs. When I change the sleep to a larger/shorter time, the wait for the console output adjusts accordingly.

Isn’t the point of using a background worker so that you can shove some task to a different thread while your program continues to execute? Or am I missing something?

Thanks

Answer 1

The simple application below works exactly as expected for me. It writes “I’m Done!” immediately and then “Completed” 5 seconds later. Can you think of anything unusual you may be doing in your program?

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            BackgroundWorker worker = new BackgroundWorker();
            worker.WorkerSupportsCancellation = false;
            worker.WorkerReportsProgress = true;
            worker.DoWork += new DoWorkEventHandler(bw_DoWork);
            worker.ProgressChanged += new ProgressChangedEventHandler(bw_ProgressChanged);
            worker.RunWorkerCompleted += new RunWorkerCompletedEventHandler(bw_RunWorkerCompleted);
            worker.RunWorkerAsync();
            Console.WriteLine("I'm Done!");
            Console.ReadKey(true);
        }

        private static void bw_RunWorkerCompleted(object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Completed");
        }

        private static void bw_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
        {            
        }

        private static void bw_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
        {
            System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(5000);
        }
    }
}