CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#task-parallel-libraryparallel.foreach
ldragicevic
ldragicevic

Reputation: 711

Parallel.ForEach with async lambda waiting forall iterations to complete

recently I have seen several SO threads related to Parallel.ForEach mixed with async lambdas, but all proposed answers were some kind of workarounds.

Is there any way how could I write:

List<int> list = new List<int>[]();

Parallel.ForEach(arrayValues, async (item) =>
{
  var x = await LongRunningIoOperationAsync(item);
  list.Add(x);
});

How can I ensure that list will contain all items from all iterations executed withing lambdas in each iteration?

How will generally Parallel.ForEach work with async lambdas, if it hit await will it hand over its thread to next iteration?

I assume ParallelLoopResult IsCompleted field is not proper one, as it will return true when all iterations are executed, no matter if their actual lambda jobs are finished or not?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1329

Answers (2)

Stephen Cleary
Stephen Cleary

Reputation: 457402

recently I have seen several SO threads related to Parallel.ForEach mixed with async lambdas, but all proposed answers were some kind of workarounds.

Well, that's because Parallel doesn't work with async. And from a different perspective, why would you want to mix them in the first place? They do opposite things. Parallel is all about adding threads and async is all about giving up threads. If you want to do asynchronous work concurrently, then use Task.WhenAll. That's the correct tool for the job; Parallel is not.

That said, it sounds like you want to use the wrong tool, so here's how you do it...

How can I ensure that list will contain all items from all iterations executed withing lambdas in each iteration?

You'll need to have some kind of a signal that some code can block on until the processing is done, e.g., CountdownEvent or Monitor. On a side note, you'll need to protect access to the non-thread-safe List<T> as well.

How will generally Parallel.ForEach work with async lambdas, if it hit await will it hand over its thread to next iteration?

Since Parallel doesn't understand async lambdas, when the first await yields (returns) to its caller, Parallel will assume that interation of the loop is complete.

I assume ParallelLoopResult IsCompleted field is not proper one, as it will return true when all iterations are executed, no matter if their actual lambda jobs are finished or not?

Correct. As far as Parallel knows, it can only "see" the method to the first await that returns to its caller. So it doesn't know when the async lambda is complete. It also will assume iterations are complete too early, which throws partitioning off.

Upvotes: 7

TheGeneral
TheGeneral

Reputation: 81583

You don't need Parallel.For/ForEach here you just need to await a list of tasks.

Background

In short you need to be very careful about async lambdas, and if you are passing them to an Action or Func<Task>

Your problem is because Parallel.For / ForEach is not suited for the async and await pattern or IO bound tasks. They are suited for cpu bound workloads. Which means they essentially have Action parameters and let's the task scheduler create the tasks for you

If you want to run multiple async tasks at the same time use Task.WhenAll , or a TPL Dataflow Block (or something similar) which can deal effectively with both CPU bound and IO bound works loads, or said more directly, they can deal with tasks which is what an async method is.

Unless you need to do more inside of your lambda (for which you haven't shown), just use aSelect and WhenAll

var tasks = items .Select(LongRunningIoOperationAsync);
var results = await Task.WhenAll(tasks); // here is your list of int

If you do, you can still use the await, 

var tasks = items.Select(async (item) =>
   {
       var x = await LongRunningIoOperationAsync(item);
       // do other stuff
       return x;
   });

var results = await Task.WhenAll(tasks);

Note : If you need the extended functionality of Parallel.ForEach (namely the Options to control max concurrency), there are several approach, however RX or DataFlow might be the most succinct

Upvotes: 5

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