Asynchronously wait for Task to complete with timeout

Question

I want to wait for a Task to complete with some special rules: If it hasn\'t completed after X milliseconds, I want to display a message to the user. And

Answer 1

Use a Timer to handle the message and automatic cancellation. When the Task completes, call Dispose on the timers so that they will never fire. Here is an example; change taskDelay to 500, 1500, or 2500 to see the different cases:

using System;
using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        private static Task CreateTaskWithTimeout(
            int xDelay, int yDelay, int taskDelay)
        {
            var cts = new CancellationTokenSource();
            var token = cts.Token;
            var task = Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
            {
                // Do some work, but fail if cancellation was requested
                token.WaitHandle.WaitOne(taskDelay);
                token.ThrowIfCancellationRequested();
                Console.WriteLine("Task complete");
            });
            var messageTimer = new Timer(state =>
            {
                // Display message at first timeout
                Console.WriteLine("X milliseconds elapsed");
            }, null, xDelay, -1);
            var cancelTimer = new Timer(state =>
            {
                // Display message and cancel task at second timeout
                Console.WriteLine("Y milliseconds elapsed");
                cts.Cancel();
            }
                , null, yDelay, -1);
            task.ContinueWith(t =>
            {
                // Dispose the timers when the task completes
                // This will prevent the message from being displayed
                // if the task completes before the timeout
                messageTimer.Dispose();
                cancelTimer.Dispose();
            });
            return task;
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var task = CreateTaskWithTimeout(1000, 2000, 2500);
            // The task has been started and will display a message after
            // one timeout and then cancel itself after the second
            // You can add continuations to the task
            // or wait for the result as needed
            try
            {
                task.Wait();
                Console.WriteLine("Done waiting for task");
            }
            catch (AggregateException ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Error waiting for task:");
                foreach (var e in ex.InnerExceptions)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(e);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

---

Also, the Async CTP provides a TaskEx.Delay method that will wrap the timers in tasks for you. This can give you more control to do things like set the TaskScheduler for the continuation when the Timer fires.

private static Task CreateTaskWithTimeout(
    int xDelay, int yDelay, int taskDelay)
{
    var cts = new CancellationTokenSource();
    var token = cts.Token;
    var task = Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
    {
        // Do some work, but fail if cancellation was requested
        token.WaitHandle.WaitOne(taskDelay);
        token.ThrowIfCancellationRequested();
        Console.WriteLine("Task complete");
    });

    var timerCts = new CancellationTokenSource();

    var messageTask = TaskEx.Delay(xDelay, timerCts.Token);
    messageTask.ContinueWith(t =>
    {
        // Display message at first timeout
        Console.WriteLine("X milliseconds elapsed");
    }, TaskContinuationOptions.OnlyOnRanToCompletion);

    var cancelTask = TaskEx.Delay(yDelay, timerCts.Token);
    cancelTask.ContinueWith(t =>
    {
        // Display message and cancel task at second timeout
        Console.WriteLine("Y milliseconds elapsed");
        cts.Cancel();
    }, TaskContinuationOptions.OnlyOnRanToCompletion);

    task.ContinueWith(t =>
    {
        timerCts.Cancel();
    });

    return task;
}