Asynchronous

Programming in C#
presented by

Noor

Parallelism vs
Multithreading
Parallel Computing
Multiple calculations are carried out
simultaneously
Multithreaded Computing
Each program has a single thread
A thread can create another thread
Multiple threads can do multiple operations
simultaneously
Parallel Computing is a paradigm and Multithreading is one of its
implementations

Synchronous vs
Asynchronous
Synchronous
Program is executed line by line, one line at a time
Each time a function is called, program execution

waits until that function returns before continuing

to the next line of code
Blocking operation

Asynchronous
Program execution doesnt wait for the function to

finish
Instead it executes the next line of code
Non-blocking operation

Asynchronous
Programming
Available in .NET 4.5 (VS 2013)
It doesnt block the current thread
It doesnt create a new thread to do its

operation
No relation with
Parallel Computing
Multithreading

Improve responsiveness for Blocking

Operation
Thread implementations in C#
BackgroundWorker (popular in Win Forms and WPF)
ThreadPool
TPL (new technology)

Problem: thread is just sitting and waiting for

ongoing operations

Asynchronous programming
No need to create a new thread
The single thread can do useful work rather
than waiting for the blocking operation to finish

Asynchronous Programming in C#
Two keywords
async
await
async is used in front of method declaration
A method declared as async has one or more await

operations
asyncTask<int>methodAsync()
{
intvalue=awaitVeryBigJobAsync();
returnvalue;
}

Control flow
1.asyncTask<int>methodA_Async()
2.{
3.
inta=10;
4.
Task<int>lengthTask=methodB_Async();
5.
intval1=findTitleLength();
6.
intval2=awaitlengthTask;
7.
returnval1+val2;
8.}
9.asyncTask<int>methodB_Async()
10.{
11. HttpClientclient=newHttpClient();
12. Task<string>getStringTask=client.GetStringAsync("www.bbc.com");
13. DoIndependentWork();
14. stringcontent=awaitgetStringTask;
15. intval=content.Length;
16. returnval;
17.}
18.intfindTitleLength();
19.{
20. vars="www.bbc.com";
21. returns.Length;
22.}
23.voidDoIndependentWork()
24.{
25. //somework
26.}

Control flow

To the

1.asyncTask<int>methodA_Async()
caller
2.{
1
3. inta=10;
1
1
2
4. Task<int>lengthTask=methodB_Async();
5. intval1=findTitleLength();
8 6. intval2=awaitlengthTask;
7.
returnval1+val2;
15
9
8.}
9.asyncTask<int>methodB_Async()
10.{
11. HttpClientclient=newHttpClient();
3
12. Task<string>getStringTask=client.GetStringAsync("www.bbc.com");
4
13. DoIndependentWork();
5
14. stringcontent=awaitgetStringTask;
12
15. intval=content.Length;
13
16. returnval;
14
17.}
18.intfindTitleLength();
19.{
20. 1 vars="www.bbc.com";
21. returns.Length;
0
22.}
23.voidDoIndependentWork()
4.
GetStringAsync()
takes
time toinconnect
to the
11.
When
it
finds
await
operator
line
6, it
12.
GetStringAsync()
isoperator
completed
and
await
7.
Control
goes
back
to
methodB_Async()
14.
Returns
result
tocontent.Length
methodA_Async
and
24.{
8.
When
it
finds
await
in
line
14,
it
9.
10.
13.
Control
Executes
findTtitleLength()
goes
val
=
back
to
methodA_Async()
1.
Program
executes
a
=
10
2.
3.
5.
6.
Creates
Calls
Executes
methodB_Async()
doIndependentWork()
an
DoIndependentWork()
instance
of
HttpClient
function
function
15.
MethodA_Async()
methodthe
returns
website.
Instead
of
blocking,
control
to
passes
the
caller
operator
instrats
lineto
14
retrieves
resultval1+val2
and
functioncontrol
execution
from
line 6. it passes
25. //somework
passes
control
to
MethodA_Async
the
methodB_Async()
6
stores
in content variable.
26.}