Implementing correct completion of a retryable block

Question

Teaser: guys, this question is not about how to implement retry policy. It\'s about correct completion of a TPL Dataflow block.

This question is mostly

Answer 1

Maybe a ManualResetEvent can do the trick for you.

Add a public property to TransformManyBlock

private ManualResetEvent _signal  = new ManualResetEvent(false);
public ManualResetEvent Signal { get { return _signal; } }

And here you go:

var retries = new HashSet<RetryingMessage<TInput>>();

TransformManyBlock<RetryableMessage<TInput>, TOutput> target = null;
target = new TransformManyBlock<RetryableMessage<TInput>, TOutput>(
    async message =>
    {
        try
        {
            var result = new[] { await transform(message.Data) };
            retries.Remove(message);

            // Sets the state of the event to signaled, allowing one or more waiting threads to proceed
            if(!retries.Any()) Signal.Set(); 
            return result;
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            message.Exceptions.Add(ex);
            if (message.RetriesRemaining == 0)
            {
                if (failureHandler != null)
                    failureHandler(message.Exceptions);

                retries.Remove(message);

                // Sets the state of the event to signaled, allowing one or more waiting threads to proceed
                if(!retries.Any()) Signal.Set(); 
            }
            else
            {
                retries.Add(message);
                message.RetriesRemaining--;

                Task.Delay(retryDelay)
                    .ContinueWith(_ => target.Post(message));
            }
            return null;
        }
    }, dataflowBlockOptions);

source.LinkTo(target);

source.Completion.ContinueWith(async _ =>
{
    //Blocks the current thread until the current WaitHandle receives a signal.
    target.Signal.WaitOne();

    target.Complete();
});

I am not sure where your target.InputCount is set. So at the place you change target.InputCount you can add following code:

if(InputCount == 0)  Signal.Set();

Answer 2

Combining hwcverwe answer and JamieSee comment could be the ideal solution.

First, you need to create more than one event:

var signal  = new ManualResetEvent(false);
var completedEvent = new ManualResetEvent(false);

Then, you have to create an observer, and subscribe to the TransformManyBlock, so you are notified when a relevant event happens:

var observer = new RetryingBlockObserver<TOutput>(completedEvent);
var observable = target.AsObservable();
observable.Subscribe(observer);

The observable can be quite easy:

private class RetryingBlockObserver<T> : IObserver<T> {
        private ManualResetEvent completedEvent;

        public RetryingBlockObserver(ManualResetEvent completedEvent) {                
            this.completedEvent = completedEvent;
        }

        public void OnCompleted() {
            completedEvent.Set();
        }

        public void OnError(Exception error) {
            //TODO
        }

        public void OnNext(T value) {
            //TODO
        }
    }

And you can wait for either the signal, or completion (exhaustion of all the source items), or both

 source.Completion.ContinueWith(async _ => {

            WaitHandle.WaitAll(completedEvent, signal);
            // Or WaitHandle.WaitAny, depending on your needs!

            target.Complete();
        });

You can inspect the result value of WaitAll to understand which event was set, and react accordingly. You can also add other events to the code, passing them to the observer, so that it can set them when needed. You can differentiate your behaviour and respond differently when an error is raised, for example