How to get out of a method

Question

I have a problem getting out of a method after the time runs out. I don't want to exit the whole program, but only this function during its execution. I need to get out of the method Check, not only the TimerTick.

I tried it with return;, Enviroment.Exit(0); that one closes everything, and with goto but I can't go to an identifier outside the void TimerTick like:

void TimerTick(Object obj, ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Max time reached");
    goto Finished;
}
// some code
Finished:
Console.WriteLine("Stopped");
// end of the Void Check

However this is the current code what does not work like I want.

 public void Check()
 {   
     // 4 seconds
     Timer TimerOne = new Timer(4 * 1000);
     void TimerTick(Object obj, ElapsedEventArgs e)
     {
         Console.WriteLine("Max time reached");
         TimerOne.Stop();
         // goto???
     }
     TimerOne.Elapsed += TimerTick;
     TimerOne.Start();
     // This for loop will go as long all items inside the list are entered
     for (int i = 0; i < 99; i++)
     {
         if (ListOne.Test.Contains(UserInput()))
         {
             Console.WriteLine("Correct!");
             points++;
             if (points == ListOne.Test.Capacity)
                 break;
             else
                 continue;
         }
         else
             Console.WriteLine("Wrong!");
     }
     TimerOne.Stop();
     Console.WriteLine("Stopped\n");
}

I hope it's clear to understand what I mean, I tried to sum everything up.

Answer 1

If you want to stick with your current code then you can do this:

public void Check()
{
    // 4 seconds
    Timer TimerOne = new Timer(4 * 1000);
    var expired = false;
    void TimerTick(Object obj, ElapsedEventArgs e)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Max time reached");
        TimerOne.Stop();
        expired = true;
    }
    TimerOne.Elapsed += TimerTick;
    TimerOne.Start();
    // This for loop will go as long all items inside the list are entered
    for (int i = 0; i < 99; i++)
    {
        if (expired)
        {
            break;
        }
        if (ListOne.Test.Contains(UserInput()))
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Correct!");
            points++;
            if (points == ListOne.Test.Capacity)
                break;
            else
                continue;
        }
        else
            Console.WriteLine("Wrong!");
    }
    TimerOne.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine("Stopped\n");
}

Answer 2

If the intention is to allow only 4 seconds for answering the 99 questions and exit the function if it times out, you could check the time in the for-loop and break if the time has been exceeded.

This example uses a System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch to check the elapsed time:-

public void Check()
{
    var sw = new System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch();

    sw.Start();

    for (int i = 0; i < 99; i++)
    {
        if (sw.ElapsedMilliseconds > 4000)
        {
            break;
        }

        if (ListOne.Test.Contains(UserInput()))
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Correct!");
            points++;

            if (points == ListOne.Test.Capacity)
            {
                break;
            }
            else
            {
                continue;
            }
        }

        else
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Wrong!");
        }
    }

    Console.WriteLine("Stopped\n");
}

(note, you could move or add a check to after the question depending on your requirements. You could also add a flag in the for loop so you could check afterwards if all the questions were answered before it exited)

A more elegant solution might be to use a Task with an absolute timeout:-

public void Check()
{
    var task = new Task(() =>
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < 99; i++)
        {
            if (ListOne.Test.Contains(UserInput()))
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Correct!");
                points++;

                if (points == ListOne.Test.Capacity)
                {
                    break;
                }
                else
                {
                    continue;
                }
            }

            else
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Wrong!");
            }
        }
    }

    // this will block for 4 seconds; if the task hasn't completed by then,
    // the task function will exit, and it will run the code in the if-block below

    if (!task.Wait(4000))
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Max time reached");
    }
}