C# backgroundworker started within a for loop

Question

I have the following code to start a background worker:

foreach (var item in this.lstbxItems.Items)
{
    if (!bw.IsBusy)
        bw.RunWorkerAsync(item);
}

Is there a way to wait for the background worker (bw) to finish and then send to it the next item in the list?

Which version of .net framework you use? If 4.0 or greater, throw away Backgroundworker and use `Task`. — Sriram Sakthivel, Mar 20 '16 at 19:14
I recommend using [TPL then](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3513432/task-parallel-library-replacement-for-backgroundworker) which will make many of tasks easier. Like waiting for the operation to complete, start multiple tasks concurrently, error handling etc. — Sriram Sakthivel, Mar 20 '16 at 19:23
This sounds like a perfect situation for using Microsoft's Reactive Extensions (NuGet "Rx-WinForms"). — Enigmativity, Mar 20 '16 at 23:33

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 20 '16 at 23:54

This sounds like a perfect situation for using Microsoft's Reactive Extensions (NuGet "Rx-WinForms").

Your code would look something like this:

var query =
    from item in this.lstbxItems.Items.ToObservable()
    from result in Observable.Start(() => ProcessItem(item))
    select new { item, result };

IDisposable subscription =
    query
        .ObserveOn(this) /* marshals to UI-thread */
        .Subscribe(x =>
        {
            /* do something with each `x.item` & `x.result`
            as soon as they are asyncronously computed */
        });

If you needed to stop the computation before it completes naturally you can just call subscription.Dispose().

C# backgroundworker started within a for loop

1 Answers1