How to store a Task in a dictionary for later execution in C#

Question

I'm trying to store a Task in a dictionary for later execution with no success:

Dictionary<string, Task<object>> router = new Dictionary<string, Task<object>();
router["xyz"] = functionToLaterExec

async Task<string> functionToLaterExec()
{
    return await Task.FromResult("Success!");
} 

If I declare the function as

string functionToExec()

Then I can do:

router["xyz"] = new Task<string>(functionToExec);

But I need the function to be async. And don't know how to invoke it. I've tryed:

var t = router["xyz"];
var data = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(await t);

with no success.

Thanks.

Answer 1

If you want to be able to start an asynchronous operation later then you don't want to store a Task, you'll want to store a Func<Task> (or, in your case, a Func<Task<string>>, so that, when you want to start the operation, you can invoke the function, producing a Task that represents its completion.