A pattern for self-cancelling and restarting task

Question

Is there a recommended established pattern for self-cancelling and restarting tasks?

E.g., I\'m working on the API for background spellchecker. The spellcheck sessio

Answer 1

I think the general concept is pretty good, though I recommend you not use ContinueWith.

I'd just write it using regular await, and a lot of the "am I already running" logic is not necessary:

Task pendingTask = null; // pending session
CancellationTokenSource cts = null; // CTS for pending session

// SpellcheckAsync is called by the client app on the UI thread
public async Task SpellcheckAsync(CancellationToken token)
{
    // SpellcheckAsync can be re-entered
    var previousCts = this.cts;
    var newCts = CancellationTokenSource.CreateLinkedTokenSource(token);
    this.cts = newCts;

    if (previousCts != null)
    {
        // cancel the previous session and wait for its termination
        previousCts.Cancel();
        try { await this.pendingTask; } catch { }
    }

    newCts.Token.ThrowIfCancellationRequested();
    this.pendingTask = SpellcheckAsyncHelper(newCts.Token);
    return await this.pendingTask;
}

// the actual task logic
async Task SpellcheckAsyncHelper(CancellationToken token)
{
    // do the work (pretty much IO-bound)
    using (...)
    {
        bool doMore = true;
        while (doMore)
        {
            token.ThrowIfCancellationRequested();
            await Task.Delay(500); // placeholder to call the provider
        }
        return doMore;
    }
}