Async process start and wait for it to finish

Question

I am new to the thread model in .net. What would you use to:

1. start a process that handles a file (process.StartInfo.FileName = fileName;)
2. wait for th

Answer 1

Try the following code.

public void KickOffProcess(string filePath) {
  var proc = Process.Start(filePath);
  ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(new WaitCallBack(WaitForProc), proc);
}

private void WaitForProc(object obj) {
  var proc = (Process)obj;
  proc.WaitForExit();
  // Do the file deletion here
}

Answer 2

"and waiting must be async" - I'm not trying to be funny, but isn't that a contradiction in terms? However, since you are starting a Process, the Exited event may help:

ProcessStartInfo startInfo = null;
Process process = Process.Start(startInfo);
process.EnableRaisingEvents = true;
process.Exited += delegate {/* clean up*/};

If you want to actually wait (timeout etc), then:

if(process.WaitForExit(timeout)) {
    // user exited
} else {
    // timeout (perhaps process.Kill();)
} 

For waiting async, perhaps just use a different thread?

ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(delegate {
    Process process = Process.Start(startInfo);
    if(process.WaitForExit(timeout)) {
        // user exited
    } else {
        // timeout
    }
});

Answer 3

You can use the Exited event in Process class

ProcessStartInfo info = new ProcessStartInfo();

info.FileName = "notepad.exe";
Process process = Process.Start(info);

process.Exited += new EventHandler(process_Exited);
Console.Read();

and in that event you can handle the operations you mentioned

Answer 4

I would probably not use a separate process for opening a file. Instead, I'd probably utilize a background thread (if I thought the operation was going to take a long time and possible block the UI thread).

private delegate void FileOpenDelegate(string filename);

public void OpenFile(string filename)
{
   FileOpenDelegate fileOpenDelegate = OpenFileAsync;
   AsyncCallback callback = AsyncCompleteMethod;
   fileOpenDelegate.BeginInvoke(filename, callback, state);
}

private void OpenFileAsync(string filename)
{
   // file opening code here, and then do whatever with the file
}

Of course, this is not a good working example (it returns nothing) and I haven't shown how the UI gets updated (you have to use BeginInvoke at the UI level because a background thread cannot update the UI thread). But this approach is generally how I go about handling asynchronous operations in .Net.

Answer 5

Adding an advanced alternative to this old question. If you want to wait for a process to exit without blocking any thread and still support timeouts, try the following:

    public static Task<bool> WaitForExitAsync(this Process process, TimeSpan timeout)
    {
        ManualResetEvent processWaitObject = new ManualResetEvent(false);
        processWaitObject.SafeWaitHandle = new SafeWaitHandle(process.Handle, false);

        TaskCompletionSource<bool> tcs = new TaskCompletionSource<bool>();

        RegisteredWaitHandle registeredProcessWaitHandle = null;
        registeredProcessWaitHandle = ThreadPool.RegisterWaitForSingleObject(
            processWaitObject,
            delegate(object state, bool timedOut)
            {
                if (!timedOut)
                {
                    registeredProcessWaitHandle.Unregister(null);
                }

                processWaitObject.Dispose();
                tcs.SetResult(!timedOut);
            },
            null /* state */,
            timeout,
            true /* executeOnlyOnce */);

        return tcs.Task;
    }

Again, the advantage to this approach compared to the accepted answer is that you're not blocking any threads, which reduces the overhead of your app.