IHttpActionResult vs async Task

Question

Most Web API 2.0 methods I\'ve seen return IHttpActionResult, which is defined as an interface that \"defines a command that asynchronously creates a System.Net.Htt

Answer 1

The difference between using IHttpActionResult and async Task is whether any of your code utilizes the async and await feature. Many libraries like Entity Framework provide async versions of methods (e.g. SaveChangesAsync) that provide a slight performance increase. However, there are pitfalls to using async with Web API, so unless you understand many of the idiosyncrasies it is prudent to stick to the synchronous API.

Steven Cleary has a lot of information on his blog about the idiosyncrasies of async and await. To get started I advise looking at Don't block on async code.