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

Building on the previous work, I thought about enhancing the retry logic in three ways:

1. Specifying what exception type to catch/retry. This is the primary enhacement as retrying for any exception is just plain wrong.
2. Not nesting the last try in a try/catch, achieving slightly better performance

3. Making it an Action extension method

   static class ActionExtensions
   {
     public static void InvokeAndRetryOnException<T> (this Action action, int retries, TimeSpan retryDelay) where T : Exception
     {
       if (action == null)
         throw new ArgumentNullException("action");
   
       while( retries-- > 0 )
       {
         try
         {
           action( );
           return;
         }
         catch (T)
         {
           Thread.Sleep( retryDelay );
         }
       }
   
       action( );
     }
   }
   

The method can then be invoked like so (anonymous methods can be used as well, of course):

new Action( AMethodThatMightThrowIntermittentException )
  .InvokeAndRetryOnException<IntermittentException>( 2, TimeSpan.FromSeconds( 1 ) );

Answer 2

I needed a method that supports cancellation, while I was at it, I added support for returning intermediate failures.

public static class ThreadUtils
{
    public static RetryResult Retry(
        Action target,
        CancellationToken cancellationToken,
        int timeout = 5000,
        int retries = 0)
    {
        CheckRetryParameters(timeout, retries)
        var failures = new List<Exception>();
        while(!cancellationToken.IsCancellationRequested)
        {
            try
            {
                target();
                return new RetryResult(failures);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                failures.Add(ex);
            }

            if (retries > 0)
            {
                retries--;
                if (retries == 0)
                {
                    throw new AggregateException(
                     "Retry limit reached, see InnerExceptions for details.",
                     failures);
                }
            }

            if (cancellationToken.WaitHandle.WaitOne(timeout))
            {
                break;
            }
        }

        failures.Add(new OperationCancelledException(
            "The Retry Operation was cancelled."));
        throw new AggregateException("Retry was cancelled.", failures);
    }

    private static void CheckRetryParameters(int timeout, int retries)
    {
        if (timeout < 1)
        {
            throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(...
        }

        if (retries < 0)
        {
            throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(...

        }
    }

    public class RetryResult : IEnumerable<Exception>
    {
        private readonly IEnumerable<Exception> failureExceptions;
        private readonly int failureCount;

         protected internal RetryResult(
             ICollection<Exception> failureExceptions)
         {
             this.failureExceptions = failureExceptions;
             this.failureCount = failureExceptions.Count;
         }
    }

    public int FailureCount
    {
        get { return this.failureCount; }
    }

    public IEnumerator<Exception> GetEnumerator()
    {
        return this.failureExceptions.GetEnumerator();
    }

    System.Collections.IEnumerator 
        System.Collections.IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
    {
        return this.GetEnumerator();
    }
}

You can use the Retry function like this, retry 3 times with a 10 second delay but without cancellation.

try
{
    var result = ThreadUtils.Retry(
        SomeAction, 
        CancellationToken.None,
        10000,
        3);

    // it worked
    result.FailureCount // but failed this many times first.
}
catch (AggregationException ex)
{
   // oops, 3 retries wasn't enough.
}

Or, retry eternally every five seconds, unless cancelled.

try
{
    var result = ThreadUtils.Retry(
        SomeAction, 
        someTokenSource.Token);

    // it worked
    result.FailureCount // but failed this many times first.
}
catch (AggregationException ex)
{
   // operation was cancelled before success.
}

As you can guess, In my source code I've overloaded the Retry function to support the differing delgate types I desire to use.

Answer 3

public delegate void ThingToTryDeletage();

public static void TryNTimes(ThingToTryDelegate, int N, int sleepTime)
{
   while(true)
   {
      try
      {
        ThingToTryDelegate();
      } catch {

            if( --N == 0) throw;
          else Thread.Sleep(time);          
      }
}

Answer 4

Update after 6 years: now I consider that the approach below is pretty bad. To create a retry logic we should consider to use a library like Polly.

---

My async implementation of the retry method:

public static async Task<T> DoAsync<T>(Func<dynamic> action, TimeSpan retryInterval, int retryCount = 3)
    {
        var exceptions = new List<Exception>();

        for (int retry = 0; retry < retryCount; retry++)
        {
            try
            {
                return await action().ConfigureAwait(false);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                exceptions.Add(ex);
            }

            await Task.Delay(retryInterval).ConfigureAwait(false);
        }
        throw new AggregateException(exceptions);
    }

Key points: I used .ConfigureAwait(false); and Func<dynamic> instead Func<T>

Answer 5

int retries = 3;
while (true)
{
    try
    {
        //Do Somthing
        break;
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        if (--retries == 0)
            return Request.BadRequest(ApiUtil.GenerateRequestResponse(false, "3 Times tried it failed do to : " + ex.Message, new JObject()));
        else
            System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(100);
    }

Answer 6

Keep it simple with C# 6.0

public async Task<T> Retry<T>(Func<T> action, TimeSpan retryInterval, int retryCount)
{
    try
    {
        return action();
    }
    catch when (retryCount != 0)
    {
        await Task.Delay(retryInterval);
        return await Retry(action, retryInterval, --retryCount);
    }
}