Does this modification makes my method run asynchronously

Question

Following is logger call, which is Blocking:

public static void Info(Category category, SubLevel subLevel, object message)
{
    CommonLogger?.Info($"{category}, {(int) subLevel}, {message}");
}

I want to make it Asynchronous execution, therefore I did the following modification, since as per my understanding having Async-Await for void return method, like current one is not a good strategy:

public static void InfoAsync(Category category, SubLevel subLevel, object message)
{
    Task.Run(() => CommonLogger?.Info($"{category}, {(int)subLevel}, {message}"));
}

Code Context -

• Make the logging run Asynchronously
• It is Fire and Forget, main business logic proceed separately

My questions are:

1. Am I correct in making this change ?

2. Is there still a better way, to do the same ?

Answer 1

Does this modification makes my method run asynchronously?

No, it doesn't. Concurrency and parallelism are two different concepts. People tend to make concurrent and parallel interchangeable, but they really aren't. Your code will run in parallel to other executing units, but by itself the operation isn't asynchronous. If you really wanted to make an asynchronous operation, you'd use async IO to do the writing to the underlying logger.

Am I correct in making this change?

I would say no. This is called the async over sync anti-pattern (see the link for an extensive explanation of what that means). I would avoid this pattern, as it creates a false sense of asynchrony. Your method isn't really naturally asynchronous, true asynchronous methods don't need to use extra thread-pool threads.

Is there still a better way, to do the same?

Yes, simply don't do this. Let the caller of this method explicitly call Task.Run so they know that the said delegate is going to execute on the thread-pool. Or even better, use async IO with the logger implementation. After all, I'm assuming this will probably write to an underlying file or execute some kind of network operation to send the log over the wire. If so, take advantage of true async APIs instead.

Answer 2

1. Yes this now is running asynchronously (in the sense that your method returns without waiting for the logging to complete, not in the meaning explained by Yuval Itzchakov).

2. Well, why don't you want to change that method to return the Task and make it awaitable for callers, too:

   public static async Task InfoAsync(Category category, SubLevel subLevel, object message)
   {
       await Task.Run(() => CommonLogger?.Info($"{category}, {(int)subLevel}, {message}"));
   }
   

But as you and other commenters pointed out: if you don't need this, it only adds unnecessary complexity (e.g. the compiler builds an unnecessary state machine).

In general, to answer questions like "can it be done better" one needs to know the criteria for "better". It depends on how and under which conditions this will be called and what the requirements are.

Answer 3

Yes, this is now an ASync method, however, the other two aren't proper questions (as mentioned by JayMee). They are purely how people develop. For example, I would do that, however, Joe Bloggs may not.

Hope this helps.