I am struggling to understand how Task.ContinueWith is supposed to work in Asp.Net WebApi. I wonder if someone can explain how, given the example below.
Consider the following example:
public IHttpActionResult Get()
{
DoStuff()
.ContinueWith(task =>
{
_log.Debug("Log some stuff");
});
return Ok();
}
public async Task DoStuff()
{
await Task.Delay(1000);
}
From what I have read I was expecting the continuation function to execute (even when the web request has completed), but it never does. If I reduce the Task.Delay down to <10ms it works. I assume that when the web request returns, the continuation function is "lost", but why is that, is it not just a piece of work waiting to be completed on a ThreadPool thread???
Please help! Thanks..
Related
I am little bit confused right now with the async/await call now. In my code, I have a chain of async calls.
The code looks like
public async Task<T> MethodA(){ do something; return await MethodB();}
public async Task<T> MethodB(){ do something; return await MethodC();}
public async Task<T> MethodC(){ return something; }
By looking at the CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId, I found out that each async call's thread are different. Some one told me this might cause problems because it's not thread safe.
can someone please tell me is that argument true or not? Does all calls need use the same thread?
I'm using a "Post" async method of webApi rest service:
public async Task<object> Post([FromBody]string data)
{
object response = ExecuteServerLogics(data);
return response;
}
This above code worked good but in some of the client's calls, we experienced performance issues.
After reading some articles here, i've noticed that our webApi rest service,
is not really working asynchronously with its incoming web requests,
because we forgot to use async/await pattern :
public async Task<object> Post([FromBody]string data)
{
object response = await Task<object>.Run( () =>
{
return ExecuteServerLogics(data);
});
return response;
}
After this fix we noticed the performance got better,
but we found another critic problem:
when accessing HttpContext.Current - it returns Null reference:
public async Task<object> Post([FromBody]string data)
{
object response = await Task<object>.Run( () =>
{
var currentContext = HttpContext.Current; // Returns Null!
return ExecuteServerLogics(data);
});
return response;
}
We tried to found a solution for it, and in most posts we found that we should pass the
worker thread's HttpContext reference into the inner Task that executes the server logics.
The problem with this solution is that the server's logics methods, use many static classes that use
"HttpContext.Current" such as -
Loggers calls.
static security classes that retrieves the user.identity
static security classes that retrives the incoming request's session data, etc.
Therefore, passing the "HttpContext.Current" reference of the worker thread won't solve it.
When we tried the next solution:
public async Task<object> Post([FromBody]string data)
{
// Save worker context:
var currentContext = HttpContext.Current;
object response = await Task<object>.Run( () =>
{
// Set the context of the current task :
HttpContext.Current = currentContext ; // Causes the calls not to work asynchronously for some reason!
// Executes logics for current request:
return ExecuteServerLogics(data);
});
return response;
}
for some reason, we noticed the performance got worse again, like it had returned working synchronously again.
Our problems are:
1. Why in the last example, setting the "HttpContext.Current" inside the await task,
causes the requests to return the same bad performance results which similar to the synchronous results?
2. Is there another way we can use "HttpContext.Current" inside the inner task that call - "ExecuteServerLogics",
and in all the static classes which also call "HttpContext.Current"?
am I doing the entire design wrong somehow?
Thanks!
From the beginning:
public async Task<object> Post([FromBody]string data)
{
object response = ExecuteServerLogics(data);
return response;
}
Don't ignore compiler warnings; the compiler will generate a warning for this method that specifically states it will run synchronously.
Moving on:
in some of the client's calls, we experienced performance issues.
Asynchronous code on the server will not be faster for a single call in isolation. It only helps you scale your server.
In particular, Task.Run will negate all the performance benefits of async and then degrade performance a bit beyond that. I believe the improvement in performance that you measured was coincidental.
in most posts we found that we should pass the worker thread's HttpContext reference into the inner Task that executes the server logics.
Those posts are wrong. IMHO. You end up using the HttpContext object from a background thread, when that object is specifically designed to be only accessed from a request thread.
am I doing the entire design wrong somehow?
I do recommend you take a step back and think about the big picture. When a request comes in, it has a certain amount of work to do. Whether that work is done synchronously or asynchronously is immaterial to the client; both approaches will take about the same amount of time.
If you need to return early to the client, then you'll need a completely different architecture. The usual approach is to queue the work to a reliable queue (e.g., Azure queue), have a separate backend (e.g., Azure WebRole), and proactively notify the client when the work is completed (e.g., SignalR).
That's not to say that async is useless, though. If ExecuteServerLogics is an I/O bound method, then it should be made asynchronous rather than blocking, and then you can use asynchronous methods as such:
public async Task<object> Post([FromBody]string data)
{
object response = await ExecuteServerLogicsAsync(data);
return response;
}
This will enable your server to be more responsive and scalable overall (i.e., not get overwhelmed by many requests).
If your task is inside your ApiController-derived class, you can use:
var ctx = this.Request.Properties["MS_HttpContext"] as System.Web.HttpContextWrapper;
This will give you an HttpContext wrapper with all the usual properties.
Amir I think you're looking for something like this below. I've been dealing with the same issue, trying to optimize a series of calls. It needs to be async all the way through, which means your ExecuteServerLogics() would need to be async, and you'd have to mark the containing lamda as async as well.
I believe following that pattern you can probably eliminate most of your performance issues. Nice passing the context through like that.
public async Task<object> Post([FromBody]string data)
{
// Save worker context:
var currentContext = HttpContext.Current;
object response = await Task<object>.Run(async () =>
{
// Set the context of the current task :
HttpContext.Current = currentContext ;
// Executes logics for current request:
return await ExecuteServerLogics(data);
});
return response;
}
I have the following WebAPI action and is wondering if returning Task<bool> and return _store.ContainerExistsAsync(container) directly is better;
I ask because, if I understand async/await correctly, the compiler creates a statemachine at the await to return to the same state. Returning the task directly without having to await it in the action, would that be theoretical faster?
public async Task<HttpResponseMessage> GetContainer(string container)
{
if (container.Length < 3 ||
container.Length > 63 ||
!Regex.IsMatch(container, #"^[a-z0-9]+(-[a-z0-9]+)*$"))
return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest, new { errors = new string[1] { "Container Name is not alowed." } })
return Request.CreateResponse<bool>(HttpStatusCode.OK, await _store.ContainerExistsAsync(container));
}
Yes, if you can implement an asynchronous method without async and await, then go ahead; async/await will add overhead.
This is commonly seen when the last line of a method has the only await and looks like return await ...;
In your particular example, I'm not 100% sure whether this would work since the method is doing something after the await.
It's easy enough to make it return the Task<bool> from ContainerExistsAsync directly, but the error handling would also need to change. If throwing a HttpResponseException works well enough, then yes, you would be able to implement an asynchronous method without using async.
Consider the following (based on the default MVC template), which is a simplified version of some "stuff" that happens in the background - it completes fine, and shows the expected result, 20:
public ActionResult Index()
{
var task = SlowDouble(10);
string result;
if (task.Wait(2000))
{
result = task.Result.ToString();
}
else
{
result = "timeout";
}
ViewBag.Message = result;
return View();
}
internal static Task<long> SlowDouble(long val)
{
TaskCompletionSource<long> result = new TaskCompletionSource<long>();
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(delegate
{
Thread.Sleep(50);
result.SetResult(val * 2);
});
return result.Task;
}
However, now if we add some async into the mix:
public static async Task<long> IndirectSlowDouble(long val)
{
long result = await SlowDouble(val);
return result;
}
and change the first line in the route to:
var task = IndirectSlowDouble(10);
then it does not work; it times out instead. If we add breakpoints, the return result; in the async method only happens after the route has already completed - basically, it looks like the system is unwilling to use any thread to resume the async operation until after the request has finished. Worse: if we had used .Wait() (or accessed .Result), then it will totally deadlock.
So: what is with that? The obvious workaround is "don't involve async", but that is not easy when consuming libraries etc. Ultimately, there is no functional difference between SlowDouble and IndirectSlowDouble (although there is obvious a structural difference).
Note: the exact same thing in a console / winform / etc will work fine.
It's to do with the way the synchronization context is implemented in ASP.NET (Pre .NET 4.5). There's tons of questions about this behavior:
Task.WaitAll hanging with multiple awaitable tasks in ASP.NET
Asp.net SynchronizationContext locks HttpApplication for async continuations?
In ASP.NET 4.5, there's a new implementation of the sync context that's described in this article.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2012/11/19/all-about-httpruntime-targetframework.aspx
When you use .Result there is always a possibility of deadlock because .Result is blocking by nature. The way to avoid deadlocks is to not block on Tasks (you should use async and await all the way down). The subject is in details described here:
Don't Block on Async Code
One fix is to add ConfigureAwait:
public static async Task<long> IndirectSlowDouble(long val)
{
long result = await SlowDouble(val).ConfigureAwait(false);
return result;
}
Another fix is to use async/await throughout:
public async Task<ActionResult> Index()
{
var task = IndirectSlowDouble(10);
long result = await task;
ViewBag.Message = result.ToString();
return View();
}
I need to call a method returning a Task from within
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
It wont let me make this method async it throws the following
An asynchronous module or handler completed while an asynchronous
operation was still pending.
and when calling
entityStorage.GetCurrentUser().Result
I get a deadlock. How can I avoid this?
I have been playing around with it coming up with stuff like
entityStorage.GetCurrentUser().Result.ConfigureAwait(false).GetAwaiter().GetResult();
But this isn't working. How can I do it? My solution will need to work with ASP.NET 4 and the Async Targetting Pack, I can't use ASP.NET 4.5 as am deploying to Azure.
The cause of the deadlock is explained here. In short, don't block on async code. You should use ConfigureAwait(false) in your library async code and await the results (not use Result or Wait).
Update: Please vote here for the MVC team to add support for async action filters.
Since await is just syntax sugar for the compiler rewriting a continuation for you, the most 'direct' path would be to take whatever code was going to follow your await and make it a ContinueWith call.
So, something like:
entityStorage.GetCurrentUser().ContinueWith(t =>
{
// do your other stuff here
});
If you MUST convert asynch to synch.
public User GetCurrentUserSynch()
{
return Task.Run(() =>
{
var asyncResult = entityStorage.GetCurrentUser();
while (!asyncResult.IsCompleted)
{
Application.Current.TryFindResource(new object()); // This is for WPF but you can do some other nonsense action of your choosing
}
return asyncResult.Result;
}).Result;
}
Otherwise use #Stephen's answer.