C# Libraries for timed actions

Question

do you know of any C# libraries that allow you to sequence a series of actions, ie. each action executing when the previous has finished, or better yet, after a specific time interval has occurred.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd537609.aspx

The Task.ContinueWith method let you specify a task to be started when the antecedent task completes.

Example

var task = Task.Factory.StartNew(() => GetFileData())
                                       .ContinueWith((x) => Analyze(x.Result))
                                       .ContinueWith((y) => Summarize(y.Result));

Answer 2

for timing try quartz.net. for synchronizing actions, use eg. events, waithandles, Monitor.Wait() and Monitor.Pulse() ...

otherwise you can handle a set of actions, eg

var methods = new List<Func>
{
    FooMethod1,
    FooMethod2
}
foreach (var method in methods)
{
    method.Invoke();
}

but this only makes sense, if you do not have a moderator-method (sequencial processing) or your methods should not know about each other.

Answer 3

For scheduled tasks you are looking for a library that supports cron jobs. Here is one I used in a project.

http://blog.bobcravens.com/2009/10/an-event-based-cron-scheduled-job-in-c/

A lot of libraries exist. I found many are feature rich and a bit heavy.

Hope this helps.

Bob