What is the TPL equivalent of a condition variable?

Question

I'm learning the Task Parallel Library (in conjunction with C# 5.0 async/await), and I want to do something like this:

public class Foo
{
    public void UnblockDoSomething()
    {
        DoWork();
        // notify DoSomethingAsync
    }

    public async Task DoSomethingAsync()
    {
        DoSomeWork();
        await ... // Wait until UnblockDoSomething is called
        DoMoreWork();
    }
}

In a traditional threaded model, I can accomplish this using condition variables. What is the TPL solution to this problem?

Answer 1

If you just have a one-at-a-time notification, you can use TaskCompletionSource:

public class Foo
{
  private TaskCompletionSource<object> _signal = new TaskCompletionSource<object>();

  public void UnblockDoSomething()
  {
    DoWork();
    _signal.SetResult(null);
    _signal = new TaskCompletionSource<object>();
  }

  public async Task DoSomethingAsync()
  {
    var continueSignal = _signal.Task;
    DoSomeWork();
    await continueSignal;
    DoMoreWork();
  }
}

Another option is to use a semaphore (SemaphoreSlim), which will "remember" if it's been signalled previously:

public class Foo
{
  private readonly SemaphoreSlim _mutex = new SemaphoreSlim(0);

  public void UnblockDoSomething()
  {
    DoWork();
    _mutex.Release();
  }

  public async Task DoSomethingAsync()
  {
    DoSomeWork();
    await _mutex.WaitAsync();
    DoMoreWork();
  }
}

If you truly need a condition variable, you can use AsyncConditionVariable from my AsyncEx library:

public class Foo
{
  private readonly AsyncLock _mutex = new AsyncLock();
  private readonly AsyncConditionVariable _cv = new AsyncConditionVariable(_mutex);

  public void UnblockDoSomething()
  {
    using (await _mutex.LockAsync())
    {
      DoWork();
      _cv.Notify();
    }
  }

  public async Task DoSomethingAsync()
  {
    using (await _mutex.LockAsync())
    {
      DoSomeWork();
      await _cv.WaitAsync();
      DoMoreWork();
    }
  }
}