Delayed function calls

Question

Is there a nice simple method of delaying a function call whilst letting the thread continue executing?

e.g.

public void foo()
{
    // Do stuff!

           


        

Answer 1

Well, I'd have to agree with the "design" point... but you can probably use a Monitor to let one know when the other is past the critical section...

    public void foo() {
        // Do stuff!

        object syncLock = new object();
        lock (syncLock) {
            // Delayed call to bar() after x number of ms
            ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(delegate {
                lock(syncLock) {
                    bar();
                }
            });

            // Do more Stuff
        } 
        // lock now released, bar can begin            
    }

Answer 2

I've been looking for something like this myself - I came up with the following, although it does use a timer, it uses it only once for the initial delay, and doesn't require any Sleep calls ...

public void foo()
{
    System.Threading.Timer timer = null; 
    timer = new System.Threading.Timer((obj) =>
                    {
                        bar();
                        timer.Dispose();
                    }, 
                null, 1000, System.Threading.Timeout.Infinite);
}

public void bar()
{
    // do stuff
}

(thanks to Fred Deschenes for the idea of disposing the timer within the callback)

Answer 3

private static volatile List<System.Threading.Timer> _timers = new List<System.Threading.Timer>();
        private static object lockobj = new object();
        public static void SetTimeout(Action action, int delayInMilliseconds)
        {
            System.Threading.Timer timer = null;
            var cb = new System.Threading.TimerCallback((state) =>
            {
                lock (lockobj)
                    _timers.Remove(timer);
                timer.Dispose();
                action()
            });
            lock (lockobj)
                _timers.Add(timer = new System.Threading.Timer(cb, null, delayInMilliseconds, System.Threading.Timeout.Infinite));
}

Answer 4

I though the perfect solution would be to have a timer handle the delayed action. FxCop doesn't like when you have an interval less then one second. I need to delay my actions until AFTER my DataGrid has completed sorting by column. I figured a one-shot timer (AutoReset = false) would be the solution, and it works perfectly. AND, FxCop will not let me suppress the warning!

Answer 5

Aside from agreeing with the design observations of the previous commenters, none of the solutions were clean enough for me. .Net 4 provides Dispatcher and Task classes which make delaying execution on the current thread pretty simple:

static class AsyncUtils
{
    static public void DelayCall(int msec, Action fn)
    {
        // Grab the dispatcher from the current executing thread
        Dispatcher d = Dispatcher.CurrentDispatcher;

        // Tasks execute in a thread pool thread
        new Task (() => {
            System.Threading.Thread.Sleep (msec);   // delay

            // use the dispatcher to asynchronously invoke the action 
            // back on the original thread
            d.BeginInvoke (fn);                     
        }).Start ();
    }
}

For context, I'm using this to debounce an ICommand tied to a left mouse button up on a UI element. Users are double clicking which was causing all kinds of havoc. (I know I could also use Click/DoubleClick handlers, but I wanted a solution that works with ICommands across the board).

public void Execute(object parameter)
{
    if (!IsDebouncing) {
        IsDebouncing = true;
        AsyncUtils.DelayCall (DebouncePeriodMsec, () => {
            IsDebouncing = false;
        });

        _execute ();
    }
}

Answer 6

Building upon the answer from David O'Donoghue here is an optimized version of the Delayed Delegate:

using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System;

namespace MyTool
{
    public class DelayedDelegate
    {
       static private DelayedDelegate _instance = null;

        private Timer _runDelegates = null;

        private Dictionary<MethodInvoker, DateTime> _delayedDelegates = new Dictionary<MethodInvoker, DateTime>();

        public DelayedDelegate()
        {
        }

        static private DelayedDelegate Instance
        {
            get
            {
                if (_instance == null)
                {
                    _instance = new DelayedDelegate();
                }

                return _instance;
            }
        }

        public static void Add(MethodInvoker pMethod, int pDelay)
        {
            Instance.AddNewDelegate(pMethod, pDelay * 1000);
        }

        public static void AddMilliseconds(MethodInvoker pMethod, int pDelay)
        {
            Instance.AddNewDelegate(pMethod, pDelay);
        }

        private void AddNewDelegate(MethodInvoker pMethod, int pDelay)
        {
            if (_runDelegates == null)
            {
                _runDelegates = new Timer();
                _runDelegates.Tick += RunDelegates;
            }
            else
            {
                _runDelegates.Stop();
            }

            _delayedDelegates.Add(pMethod, DateTime.Now + TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(pDelay));

            StartTimer();
        }

        private void StartTimer()
        {
            if (_delayedDelegates.Count > 0)
            {
                int delay = FindSoonestDelay();
                if (delay == 0)
                {
                    RunDelegates();
                }
                else
                {
                    _runDelegates.Interval = delay;
                    _runDelegates.Start();
                }
            }
        }

        private int FindSoonestDelay()
        {
            int soonest = int.MaxValue;
            TimeSpan remaining;

            foreach (MethodInvoker invoker in _delayedDelegates.Keys)
            {
                remaining = _delayedDelegates[invoker] - DateTime.Now;
                soonest = Math.Max(0, Math.Min(soonest, (int)remaining.TotalMilliseconds));
            }

            return soonest;
        }

        private void RunDelegates(object pSender = null, EventArgs pE = null)
        {
            try
            {
                _runDelegates.Stop();

                List<MethodInvoker> removeDelegates = new List<MethodInvoker>();

                foreach (MethodInvoker method in _delayedDelegates.Keys)
                {
                    if (DateTime.Now >= _delayedDelegates[method])
                    {
                        method();

                        removeDelegates.Add(method);
                    }
                }

                foreach (MethodInvoker method in removeDelegates)
                {
                    _delayedDelegates.Remove(method);
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
            }
            finally
            {
                StartTimer();
            }
        }
    }
}

The class could be slightly more improved by using a unique key for the delegates. Because if you add the same delegate a second time before the first one fired, you might get a problem with the dictionary.