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();
         


        

Answer 1

Here's an async/await version that aggregates exceptions and supports cancellation.

/// 
protected static async Task DoWithRetry( Func> action, CancellationToken cancelToken, int maxRetries = 3 )
{
    var exceptions = new List();

    for ( int retries = 0; !cancelToken.IsCancellationRequested; retries++ )
        try {
            return await action().ConfigureAwait( false );
        } catch ( Exception ex ) {
            exceptions.Add( ex );

            if ( retries < maxRetries )
                await Task.Delay( 500, cancelToken ).ConfigureAwait( false ); //ease up a bit
            else
                throw new AggregateException( "Retry limit reached", exceptions );
        }

    exceptions.Add( new OperationCanceledException( cancelToken ) );
    throw new AggregateException( "Retry loop was canceled", exceptions );
}