How to cancel a task waiting with a timeout without exception

Question

When a task with a timeout is canceled (before the timeout expires) using an undo marker, an exception is thrown. Example:

mytask.start();
bool didTaskRunInTime = mytask.wait(5 mins, _cancelToken);

This means that I cannot continue as shown below.

//was the task cancelled
if (_cancelToken.IsCancelRequested)
{
    // log cancel from user to file etc
}

if (didTaskRunInTime )
{
    int taskResult = myTask.Result;
    // log result to file
}
else if (!_cancelToken.IsCancelRequested)
{
    // Tell user task timed out , log a message etc
}

I will have to do all this in my catch block, and my code looks messy. What is the right way to do this?

Answer 1

You can invoke Task.WaitAnyexactly this task with an array. Then you can act in the status of the task, however the method returns. Code example:

using System;
using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

class Test
{
    static void Main()
    {
        Task sleeper = Task.Factory.StartNew(() => Thread.Sleep(100000));

        int index = Task.WaitAny(new[] { sleeper },
                                 TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.5));
        Console.WriteLine(index); // Prints -1, timeout

        var cts = new CancellationTokenSource();

        // Just a simple wait of getting a cancellable task
        Task cancellable = sleeper.ContinueWith(ignored => {}, cts.Token);

        // It doesn't matter that we cancel before the wait
        cts.Cancel();

        index = Task.WaitAny(new[] { cancellable },
                             TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.5));
        Console.WriteLine(index); // 0 - task 0  has completed (ish :)
        Console.WriteLine(cancellable.Status); // Cancelled
    }
}

, , "" , :)

Answer 2

OperationCanceledException

try
{           
    mytask.start();
    bool didTaskRunInTime = mytask.wait(5 mins, _cancelToken);

    if (didTaskRunInTime )
    {
        int taskResult = myTask.Result;
        //log result to file
    }
    else
    {
        // Tell user task timed out , log a message etc
    }
}
catch (OperationCanceledException ex)
{
    // log cancel from user to file et
}