If my interface must return Task what is the best way to have a no-operation implementation?

Question

In the code below, due to the interface, the class LazyBar must return a task from its method (and for argument\'s sake can\'t be changed). If LazyBar

Answer 1

Task.Delay(0) as in the accepted answer was a good approach, as it is a cached copy of a completed Task.

As of 4.6 there's now Task.CompletedTask which is more explicit in its purpose, but not only does Task.Delay(0) still return a single cached instance, it returns the same single cached instance as does Task.CompletedTask.

The cached nature of neither is guaranteed to remain constant, but as implementation-dependent optimisations that are only implementation-dependent as optimisations (that is, they'd still work correctly if the implementation changed to something that was still valid) the use of Task.Delay(0) was better than the accepted answer.

Answer 2

Recently encountered this and kept getting warnings/errors about the method being void.

We're in the business of placating the compiler and this clears it up:

    public async Task MyVoidAsyncMethod()
    {
        await Task.CompletedTask;
    }

This brings together the best of all the advice here so far. No return statement is necessary unless you're actually doing something in the method.

Answer 3

If you are using generics, all answer will give us compile error. You can use return default(T);. Sample below to explain further.

public async Task<T> GetItemAsync<T>(string id)
            {
                try
                {
                    var response = await this._container.ReadItemAsync<T>(id, new PartitionKey(id));
                    return response.Resource;
                }
                catch (CosmosException ex) when (ex.StatusCode == System.Net.HttpStatusCode.NotFound)
                {

                    return default(T);
                }

            }