c# - Async always WaitingForActivation

Question

I am trying to figure out what the async & await keywords are all about, however the output isn't what I'm expecting.

The console application is as follows:

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Foo called");
        var result = Foo(5);

        while (result.Status != TaskStatus.RanToCompletion)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Thread ID: {0}, Status: {1}", Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId, result.Status);
            Task.Delay(100).Wait();
        }

        Console.WriteLine("Result: {0}", result.Result);
        Console.WriteLine("Finished.");
        Console.ReadKey(true);
    }

    private static async Task<string> Foo(int seconds)
    {
        return await Task.Run(() =>
            {
                for (int i = 0; i < seconds; i++)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Thread ID: {0}, second {1}.", Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId, i);
                    Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1)).Wait();
                }

                return "Foo Completed.";
            });
    }
}

The output is:

Foo called
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 6, second 0.
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 6, second 1.
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 6, second 2.
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 6, second 3.
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 6, second 4.
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Thread ID: 10, Status: WaitingForActivation
Result: Foo Completed.
Finished..

I was expecting to see the status changing from WaitingForActivation once the method is started.

How can it stay in this state and be active?

Answer 1

For my answer, it is worth remembering that the TPL (Task-Parallel-Library), Task class and TaskStatus enumeration were introduced prior to the async-await keywords and the async-await keywords were not the original motivation of the TPL.

In the context of methods marked as async, the resulting Task is not a Task representing the execution of the method, but a Task for the continuation of the method.

This is only able to make use of a few possible states:

• Canceled
• Faulted
• RanToCompletion
• WaitingForActivation

I understand that Runningcould appear to have been a better default than WaitingForActivation, however this could be misleading, as the majority of the time, an async method being executed is not actually running (i.e. it may be await-ing something else). The other option may have been to add a new value to TaskStatus, however this could have been a breaking change for existing applications and libraries.

All of this is very different to when making use of Task.Run which is a part of the original TPL, this is able to make use of all the possible values of the TaskStatus enumeration.

If you wish to keep track of the status of an async method, take a look at the IProgress(T) interface, this will allow you to report the ongoing progress. This blog post, Async in 4.5: Enabling Progress and Cancellation in Async APIs will provide further information on the use of the IProgress(T) interface.