I want some clarity on this. I know that Task.Delay
will internally use a Timer and it is obviously task-based (awaitable), whereas Thread.Sleep
will cause the thread to be blocked. However, does calling .Wait
on the task cause the thread to be blocked?
If not, one would assume that Task.Delay(2500).Wait()
is better than Thread.Sleep(2500)
. This is slightly different that the SO question/answer here as I'm calling .Wait()
.
Using Wait
on an uncompleted task is indeed blocking the thread until the task completes.
Using Thread.Sleep
is clearer since you're explicitly blocking a thread instead of implicitly blocking on a task.
The only way using Task.Delay
is preferable is that it allows using a CancellationToken
so you can cancel the block if you like to.
Thread.Sleep(...)
creates an event to wake you up in X millisec, then puts your Thread to sleep... in X millisec, the event wakes you up.
Task.Delay(...).Wait()
creates an event to start a Task in X millisec, then puts your Thread to sleep until the Task is done (with Wait)... in X millisec, the event starts the Task which ends immediately and then wakes you up.
Basically, they are both very similar. The only difference is if you want to wake up early from another Thread, you won't hit the same method.