Can constructors be async?

Question

I have a project where I\'m trying to populate some data in a constructor:

public class ViewModel
{
    public ObservableCollection Data { get;          


        

Answer 1

In this particular case, a viewModel is required to launch the task and notify the view upon its completion. An "async property", not an "async constructor", is in order.

I just released AsyncMVVM, which solves exactly this problem (among others). Should you use it, your ViewModel would become:

public class ViewModel : AsyncBindableBase
{
    public ObservableCollection Data
    {
        get { return Property.Get(GetDataAsync); }
    }

    private Task> GetDataAsync()
    {
        //Get the data asynchronously
    }
}

Strangely enough, Silverlight is supported. :)