Is there a Task based replacement for System.Threading.Timer?

Question

I'm new to .Net 4.0's Tasks and I wasn't able to find what I thought would be a Task based replacement or implementation of a Timer, e.g. a periodic Task. Is there such a thing?

Update I came up with what I think is a solution to my needs which is to wrap the "Timer" functionality inside a Task with child Tasks all taking advantage of the CancellationToken and returns the Task to be able to participate in further Task steps.

public static Task StartPeriodicTask(Action action, int intervalInMilliseconds, int delayInMilliseconds, CancellationToken cancelToken) {      Action wrapperAction = () =>     {         if (cancelToken.IsCancellationRequested) { return; }          action();     };      Action mainAction = () =>     {         TaskCreationOptions attachedToParent = TaskCreationOptions.AttachedToParent;          if (cancelToken.IsCancellationRequested) { return; }          if (delayInMilliseconds > 0)             Thread.Sleep(delayInMilliseconds);          while (true)         {             if (cancelToken.IsCancellationRequested) { break; }              Task.Factory.StartNew(wrapperAction, cancelToken, attachedToParent, TaskScheduler.Current);              if (cancelToken.IsCancellationRequested || intervalInMilliseconds == Timeout.Infinite) { break; }              Thread.Sleep(intervalInMilliseconds);         }     };      return Task.Factory.StartNew(mainAction, cancelToken); }       

Answer 1

It depends on 4.5, but this works.

public class PeriodicTask {     public static async Task Run(Action action, TimeSpan period, CancellationToken cancellationToken)     {         while(!cancellationToken.IsCancellationRequested)         {             await Task.Delay(period, cancellationToken);              if (!cancellationToken.IsCancellationRequested)                 action();         }      }       public static Task Run(Action action, TimeSpan period)      {           return Run(action, period, CancellationToken.None);      } } 

Obviously you could add a generic version that takes arguments as well. This is actually similar to other suggested approaches since under the hood Task.Delay is using a timer expiration as a task completion source.