Is it OK to declare an async method as returning void to silence the CS4014 warning?

Question

Visual Studio emits a warning for this code (\'because this call is not awaited, execution of the current method continues before the call is completed\').

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Answer 1

It's extremely rare to have a true fire-and-forget operation; that is, an operation where:

• No one cares when it completes.
• No one cares if it completes.
• No one cares if it throws an exception.

Particularly with the last of these; most so-called "fire-and-forget" operations are not actually fire-and-forget because some action needs to be taken if it doesn't succeed.

That said, there are a few situations where a true fire-and-forget is applicable.

I prefer to use async Task and avoid the compiler warning by assigning the task to an otherwise unused variable:

var _ = FireAndForget();

async Task methods are more reusable and testable than async void methods.

However, I wouldn't throw a fit if a developer on my team just used async void instead.