Wrapping a Task to return a value

Question

I feel like there is a better way to do the following and looking for other opinions.

Essentially, I am trying to utilize the async/await pattern but need to return a bool value from method to indicate what happened in the method which is causing me to wrap the Task with Task so this can be accomplished. My spidey-sense is telling me something is wrong with my implementation.

In the below example "LongRunningTask" is something I don't have control over because it is a library method that returns a Task, so something I can't change. The remainder of the flow logic could be changed. Obviously, this is just a fictional representation of my real-issue but meant to demonstrate the issue, so don't get caught-up in the hard-coded "GetData", etc...

Take a look and let me know of other options.

void Main()
{
    StartApplication();
}

private async void StartApplication()
{
    // This is a just fictional example passing hard-coded GetData
    var didExecuteLongRunningTask = await ProcessStuff("GetData");

    if (didExecuteLongRunningTask)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Long running task was executed");
    }
    else {
        Console.WriteLine("Long running task was NOT executed");
    }
}

// Define other methods and classes here
private async Task<bool> ProcessStuff(string command)
{
    if (command == "GetData")
    {
        await LongRunningTask();
        return await Task<bool>.Factory.StartNew(() => true);
    }
    else
    {
        return await Task<bool>.Factory.StartNew(() => false);
    }
}

private Task LongRunningTask()
{
    return Task.Delay(2000);
}

your function is marked async just do return true; or return false; — Scott Chamberlain
– Scott Chamberlain, Commented May 28, 2017 at 20:16

Camilo Terevinto · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-28 20:20:45Z

2

Yes, you are right, you are over-complicating it. You can just do:

private async Task<bool> ProcessStuff(string command)
{
    if (command == "GetData")
    {
        await LongRunningTask();
        return true;
    }
    else
    {
        return false;
    }
}

You can look at the MSDN for more information: Asynchronous Programming

answered May 28, 2017 at 20:20

Camilo Terevinto

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3 Comments

Joshua Mason Over a year ago

Wow, ok... I didn't even try that as I didn't realize returning bool would magically get converted to Task<bool>. I'll have to research how that works...

Camilo Terevinto Over a year ago

@JoshuaMason you can get all the basics from the MSDN link I posted

Joshua Mason Over a year ago

Thank you, I've actually been using async/await pattern for quite some time, but somehow missed this completely. This article actually explains the magic of this particular aspect fairly well. learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/programming-guide/…

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