Cleanest way to write retry logic?

Question

Occasionally I have a need to retry an operation several times before giving up. My code is like:

int retries = 3;
while(true) {
  try {
    DoSomething();
    break; // success!
  } catch {
    if(--retries == 0) throw;
    else Thread.Sleep(1000);
  }
}

I would like to rewrite this in a general retry function like:

TryThreeTimes(DoSomething);

Is it possible in C#? What would be the code for the TryThreeTimes() method?

Answer 1

Do it simple in C#, Java or other languages:

  internal class ShouldRetryHandler {
    private static int RETRIES_MAX_NUMBER = 3;
    private static int numberTryes;

    public static bool shouldRetry() {
        var statusRetry = false;

        if (numberTryes< RETRIES_MAX_NUMBER) {
            numberTryes++;
            statusRetry = true;
            //log msg -> 'retry number' + numberTryes

        }

        else {
            statusRetry = false;
            //log msg -> 'reached retry number limit' 
        }

        return statusRetry;
    }
}

and use it in your code very simple:

 void simpleMethod(){
    //some code

    if(ShouldRetryHandler.shouldRetry()){
    //do some repetitive work
     }

    //some code    
    }

or you can use it in recursive methods:

void recursiveMethod(){
    //some code

    if(ShouldRetryHandler.shouldRetry()){
    recursiveMethod();
     }

    //some code    
    }