How to create an asynchronous method

Question

I have simple method in my C# app, it picks file from FTP server and parses it and stores the data in DB. I want it to be asynchronous, so that user perform other operations on App, once parsing is done he has to get message stating "Parsing is done".

I know it can achieved through asynchronous method call but I dont know how to do that can anybody help me please??

Answer 1

.NET got new keyword async for asonchrynous functions. You can start digging at docs.microsoft.com (async). The shortest general howto make function asonchrynous is to change function F:

Object F(Object args)
{
    ...
    return RESULT;
}

to something like this:

async Task<Object> FAsync(Object args)
{
    ...
    await RESULT_FROM_PROMISE;
    ...
    return RESULT;
}

The most important thing in above code is that when your code approach await keyword it return control to function that called FAsync and make other computation until promissed value has been returned and procede with rest of code in function FAsync.

Answer 2

Any time you're doing something asynchronous, you're using a separate thread, either a new thread, or one taken from the thread pool. This means that anything you do asynchronously has to be very careful about interactions with other threads.

One way to do that is to place the code for the async thread (call it thread "A") along with all of its data into another class (call it class "A"). Make sure that thread "A" only accesses data in class "A". If thread "A" only touches class "A", and no other thread touches class "A"'s data, then there's one less problem:

public class MainClass
{
    private sealed class AsyncClass
    {
        private int _counter;
        private readonly int _maxCount;

        public AsyncClass(int maxCount) { _maxCount = maxCount; }

        public void Run()
        {
            while (_counter++ < _maxCount) { Thread.Sleep(1); }
            CompletionTime = DateTime.Now;
        }

        public DateTime CompletionTime { get; private set; }
    }

    private AsyncClass _asyncInstance;
    public void StartAsync()
    {
        var asyncDoneTime = DateTime.MinValue;
        _asyncInstance = new AsyncClass(10);
        Action asyncAction = _asyncInstance.Run;
        asyncAction.BeginInvoke(
            ar =>
                {
                    asyncAction.EndInvoke(ar);
                    asyncDoneTime = _asyncInstance.CompletionTime;
                }, null);
        Console.WriteLine("Async task ended at {0}", asyncDoneTime);
    }
}

Notice that the only part of AsyncClass that's touched from the outside is its public interface, and the only part of that which is data is CompletionTime. Note that this is only touched after the asynchronous task is complete. This means that nothing else can interfere with the tasks inner workings, and it can't interfere with anything else.