Delayed function calls

Question

Is there a nice simple method of delaying a function call whilst letting the thread continue executing?

e.g.

public void foo()
{
    // Do stuff!

    // Delayed call to bar() after x number of ms

    // Do more Stuff
}

public void bar()
{
    // Only execute once foo has finished
}

I'm aware that this can be achieved by using a timer and event handlers, but I was wondering if there is a standard c# way to achieve this?

If anyone is curious, the reason that this is required is that foo() and bar() are in different (singleton) classes which my need to call each other in exceptional circumstances. The problem being that this is done at initialisation so foo needs to call bar which needs an instance of the foo class which is being created... hence the delayed call to bar() to ensure that foo is fully instanciated.. Reading this back almost smacks of bad design !

EDIT

I'll take the points about bad design under advisement! I've long thought that I might be able to improve the system, however, this nasty situation only occurs when an exception is thrown, at all other times the two singletons co-exist very nicely. I think that I'm not going to messaround with nasty async-patters, rather I'm going to refactor the initialisation of one of the classes.

Answer 1

It's indeed a very bad design, let alone singleton by itself is bad design.

However, if you really do need to delay execution, here's what you may do:

BackgroundWorker barInvoker = new BackgroundWorker();
barInvoker.DoWork += delegate
    {
        Thread.Sleep(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1));
        bar();
    };
barInvoker.RunWorkerAsync();

This will, however, invoke bar() on a separate thread. If you need to call bar() in the original thread you might need to move bar() invocation to RunWorkerCompleted handler or do a bit of hacking with SynchronizationContext.

Answer 2

Building upon the answer from David O'Donoghue here is an optimized version of the Delayed Delegate:

using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System;

namespace MyTool
{
    public class DelayedDelegate
    {
       static private DelayedDelegate _instance = null;

        private Timer _runDelegates = null;

        private Dictionary<MethodInvoker, DateTime> _delayedDelegates = new Dictionary<MethodInvoker, DateTime>();

        public DelayedDelegate()
        {
        }

        static private DelayedDelegate Instance
        {
            get
            {
                if (_instance == null)
                {
                    _instance = new DelayedDelegate();
                }

                return _instance;
            }
        }

        public static void Add(MethodInvoker pMethod, int pDelay)
        {
            Instance.AddNewDelegate(pMethod, pDelay * 1000);
        }

        public static void AddMilliseconds(MethodInvoker pMethod, int pDelay)
        {
            Instance.AddNewDelegate(pMethod, pDelay);
        }

        private void AddNewDelegate(MethodInvoker pMethod, int pDelay)
        {
            if (_runDelegates == null)
            {
                _runDelegates = new Timer();
                _runDelegates.Tick += RunDelegates;
            }
            else
            {
                _runDelegates.Stop();
            }

            _delayedDelegates.Add(pMethod, DateTime.Now + TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(pDelay));

            StartTimer();
        }

        private void StartTimer()
        {
            if (_delayedDelegates.Count > 0)
            {
                int delay = FindSoonestDelay();
                if (delay == 0)
                {
                    RunDelegates();
                }
                else
                {
                    _runDelegates.Interval = delay;
                    _runDelegates.Start();
                }
            }
        }

        private int FindSoonestDelay()
        {
            int soonest = int.MaxValue;
            TimeSpan remaining;

            foreach (MethodInvoker invoker in _delayedDelegates.Keys)
            {
                remaining = _delayedDelegates[invoker] - DateTime.Now;
                soonest = Math.Max(0, Math.Min(soonest, (int)remaining.TotalMilliseconds));
            }

            return soonest;
        }

        private void RunDelegates(object pSender = null, EventArgs pE = null)
        {
            try
            {
                _runDelegates.Stop();

                List<MethodInvoker> removeDelegates = new List<MethodInvoker>();

                foreach (MethodInvoker method in _delayedDelegates.Keys)
                {
                    if (DateTime.Now >= _delayedDelegates[method])
                    {
                        method();

                        removeDelegates.Add(method);
                    }
                }

                foreach (MethodInvoker method in removeDelegates)
                {
                    _delayedDelegates.Remove(method);
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
            }
            finally
            {
                StartTimer();
            }
        }
    }
}

The class could be slightly more improved by using a unique key for the delegates. Because if you add the same delegate a second time before the first one fired, you might get a problem with the dictionary.

Answer 3

Thanks to modern C# 5/6 :)

public void foo()
{
    Task.Delay(1000).ContinueWith(t=> bar());
}

public void bar()
{
    // do stuff
}

Answer 4

It sounds like the control of the creation of both these objects and their interdependence needs to controlled externally, rather than between the classes themselves.

Answer 5

Well, I'd have to agree with the "design" point... but you can probably use a Monitor to let one know when the other is past the critical section...

    public void foo() {
        // Do stuff!

        object syncLock = new object();
        lock (syncLock) {
            // Delayed call to bar() after x number of ms
            ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(delegate {
                lock(syncLock) {
                    bar();
                }
            });

            // Do more Stuff
        } 
        // lock now released, bar can begin            
    }

Answer 6

This will work either on older versions of .NET
Cons: will execute in its own thread

class CancelableDelay
    {
        Thread delayTh;
        Action action;
        int ms;

        public static CancelableDelay StartAfter(int milliseconds, Action action)
        {
            CancelableDelay result = new CancelableDelay() { ms = milliseconds };
            result.action = action;
            result.delayTh = new Thread(result.Delay);
            result.delayTh.Start();
            return result;
        }

        private CancelableDelay() { }

        void Delay()
        {
            try
            {
                Thread.Sleep(ms);
                action.Invoke();
            }
            catch (ThreadAbortException)
            { }
        }

        public void Cancel() => delayTh.Abort();

    }

Usage:

var job = CancelableDelay.StartAfter(1000, () => { WorkAfter1sec(); });  
job.Cancel(); //to cancel the delayed job