asynchronous - Why would one use Task<T> over ValueTask<T> in C#?

Question

As of C# 7.0 async methods can return ValueTask<T>. The explanation says that it should be used when we have a cached result or simulating async via synchronous code. However I still do not understand what is the problem with using ValueTask always or in fact why async/await wasn't built with a value type from the start. When would ValueTask fail to do the job?

Answer 1

From the API docs (emphasis added):

Methods may return an instance of this value type when it's likely that the result of their operations will be available synchronously and when the method is expected to be invoked so frequently that the cost of allocating a new Task<TResult> for each call will be prohibitive.

There are tradeoffs to using a ValueTask<TResult> instead of a Task<TResult>. For example, while a ValueTask<TResult> can help avoid an allocation in the case where the successful result is available synchronously, it also contains two fields whereas a Task<TResult> as a reference type is a single field. This means that a method call ends up returning two fields worth of data instead of one, which is more data to copy. It also means that if a method that returns one of these is awaited within an async method, the state machine for that async method will be larger due to needing to store the struct that's two fields instead of a single reference.

Further, for uses other than consuming the result of an asynchronous operation via await, ValueTask<TResult> can lead to a more convoluted programming model, which can in turn actually lead to more allocations. For example, consider a method that could return either a Task<TResult> with a cached task as a common result or a ValueTask<TResult>. If the consumer of the result wants to use it as a Task<TResult>, such as to use with in methods like Task.WhenAll and Task.WhenAny, the ValueTask<TResult> would first need to be converted into a Task<TResult> using AsTask, which leads to an allocation that would have been avoided if a cached Task<TResult> had been used in the first place.

As such, the default choice for any asynchronous method should be to return a Task or Task<TResult>. Only if performance analysis proves it worthwhile should a ValueTask<TResult> be used instead of Task<TResult>.