Async Task.WhenAll with timeout

Question

Is there a way in the new async dotnet 4.5 library to set a timeout on the Task.WhenAll method. I want to fetch several sources and stop after say 5 seconds and skip the sources that weren't finished.

Answer 1

You could combine the resulting Task with a Task.Delay() using Task.WhenAny():

await Task.WhenAny(Task.WhenAll(tasks), Task.Delay(timeout));

If you want to harvest completed tasks in case of a timeout:

var completedResults =
  tasks
  .Where(t => t.Status == TaskStatus.RanToCompletion)
  .Select(t => t.Result)
  .ToList();

Answer 2

Check out the "Early Bailout" and "Task.Delay" sections from Microsoft's Task-Based Asynchronous Pattern Overview.

Early bailout. An operation represented by t1 can be grouped in a WhenAny with another task t2, and we can wait on the WhenAny task. t2 could represent a timeout, or cancellation, or some other signal that will cause the WhenAny task to complete prior to t1 completing.

Answer 3

void result version of @i3arnon 's answer, along with comments and changing first argument to use extension this.

I've also got a forwarding method specifying timeout as an int using TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(millisecondsTimeout) to match other Task methods.

public static async Task WhenAll(this IEnumerable<Task> tasks, TimeSpan timeout)
{
  // Create a timeout task.
  var timeoutTask = Task.Delay(timeout);

  // Get the completed tasks made up of...
  var completedTasks =
  (
    // ...all tasks specified
    await Task.WhenAll(tasks

    // Now finish when its task has finished or the timeout task finishes
    .Select(task => Task.WhenAny(task, timeoutTask)))
  )
  // ...but not the timeout task
  .Where(task => task != timeoutTask);

  // And wait for the internal WhenAll to complete.
  await Task.WhenAll(completedTasks);
}

Answer 4

Check out a custom task combinator proposed in http://tutorials.csharp-online.net/Task_Combinators

async static Task<TResult> WithTimeout<TResult> 
   (this Task<TResult> task, TimeSpan timeout)
 {
   Task winner = await (Task.WhenAny 
      (task, Task.Delay (timeout)));
   if (winner != task) throw new TimeoutException();
   return await task; // Unwrap result/re-throw
}

I have not tried it yet.

Answer 5

In addition to svick's answer, the following works for me when I have to wait for a couple of tasks to complete but have to process something else while I'm waiting:

Task[] TasksToWaitFor = //Your tasks
TimeSpan Timeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds( 30 );

while( true )
{
    await Task.WhenAny( Task.WhenAll( TasksToWaitFor ), Task.Delay( Timeout ) );
    if( TasksToWaitFor.All( a => a.IsCompleted ) )
        break;

    //Do something else here
}

Answer 6

You can use the following code:

        var timeoutTime = 10;

        var tasksResult = await Task.WhenAll(
                                listOfTasks.Select(x => Task.WhenAny(
                                    x, Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(timeoutTime)))
                                )
                            );


        var succeededtasksResponses = tasksResult
                                               .OfType<Task<MyResult>>()
                                               .Select(task => task.Result);

        if (succeededtasksResponses.Count() != listOfTasks.Count())
        {
            // Not all tasks were completed
            // Throw error or do whatever you want
        }

        //You can use the succeededtasksResponses that contains the list of successful responses

How it works:

You need to put in the timeoutTime variable the limit of time for all tasks to be completed. So basically all tasks will wait in maximum the time that you set in timeoutTime. When all the tasks return the result, the timeout will not occur and the tasksResult will be set.

After that we are only getting the completed tasks. The tasks that were not completed will have no results.