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

A few variants of Andrew Arnott's answer:

1. If you want to wait for an existing task and find out whether it completed or timed out, but don't want to cancel it if the timeout occurs:

   public static async Task TimedOutAsync(this Task task, int timeoutMilliseconds)
   {
       if (timeoutMilliseconds < 0 || (timeoutMilliseconds > 0 && timeoutMilliseconds < 100)) { throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(); }
   
       if (timeoutMilliseconds == 0) {
           return !task.IsCompleted; // timed out if not completed
       }
       var cts = new CancellationTokenSource();
       if (await Task.WhenAny( task, Task.Delay(timeoutMilliseconds, cts.Token)) == task) {
           cts.Cancel(); // task completed, get rid of timer
           await task; // test for exceptions or task cancellation
           return false; // did not timeout
       } else {
           return true; // did timeout
       }
   }
   

2. If you want to start a work task and cancel the work if the timeout occurs:

   public static async Task CancelAfterAsync( this Func> actionAsync, int timeoutMilliseconds)
   {
       if (timeoutMilliseconds < 0 || (timeoutMilliseconds > 0 && timeoutMilliseconds < 100)) { throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(); }
   
       var taskCts = new CancellationTokenSource();
       var timerCts = new CancellationTokenSource();
       Task task = actionAsync(taskCts.Token);
       if (await Task.WhenAny(task, Task.Delay(timeoutMilliseconds, timerCts.Token)) == task) {
           timerCts.Cancel(); // task completed, get rid of timer
       } else {
           taskCts.Cancel(); // timer completed, get rid of task
       }
       return await task; // test for exceptions or task cancellation
   }
   

3. If you have a task already created that you want to cancel if a timeout occurs:

   public static async Task CancelAfterAsync(this Task task, int timeoutMilliseconds, CancellationTokenSource taskCts)
   {
       if (timeoutMilliseconds < 0 || (timeoutMilliseconds > 0 && timeoutMilliseconds < 100)) { throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(); }
   
       var timerCts = new CancellationTokenSource();
       if (await Task.WhenAny(task, Task.Delay(timeoutMilliseconds, timerCts.Token)) == task) {
           timerCts.Cancel(); // task completed, get rid of timer
       } else {
           taskCts.Cancel(); // timer completed, get rid of task
       }
       return await task; // test for exceptions or task cancellation
   }
   

Another comment, these versions will cancel the timer if the timeout does not occur, so multiple calls will not cause timers to pile up.

sjb