Low-allocation async/synchronous task library
Provided as an alternative to the built-in System.Threading.Tasks system, for high-performance applications where excessive garbage collection is undesired.
When using the System.Threading.Tasks.Task type, a new object will be created to store data for each task enqueued.
This is not a problem when a small number of tasks are enqueued, yet in high-performance applications,
this extra pressure on the garbage collector can result in adverse performance.
The Moth.Tasks package can mitigate this problem, by using an internal buffer for task data, so as the only allocation is the task buffer itself.
The TaskQueue type provides methods for enqueueing and executing tasks.
Tasks can be enqueued as a System.Action/System.Action<T1, ...> delegate:
// Create a new TaskQueue
TaskQueue tasks = new TaskQueue ();
// Enqueue a task taking two integer parameters: a & b, as an Action<int, int>
tasks.Enqueue ((int a, int b) =>
{
int result = a + b; // Add a & b together
Console.WriteLine ($"The result of {a} + {b} is {result}"); // Print the result to the console
}, 2, 2); // 2 & 2 is supplied as arguments for both parameters down hereor as a struct implementing the ITask interface:
struct AdditionTask : ITask
{
public int A, B; // Two numbers which will be added together
// ITask.Run is invoked when the task is executed
public void Run ()
{
int result = A + B; // Add a & b together
Console.WriteLine ($"The result of {a} + {b} is {result}"); // Print the result to the console
}
}
...
// Enqueue an AdditionTask with 2 as arguments for A & B
tasks.Enqueue (new AdditionTask { A = 2, B = 2 });To execute the enqueued tasks, invoke either the TaskQueue.RunNextTask
or TaskQueue.TryRunNextTask method:
if (tasks.TryRunNextTask ()) // Runs the next task in the TaskQueue and returns true, or returns false if the queue was empty
{
...
}
tasks.RunNextTask (); // Blocks until a task is enqueued, then runs itTo execute tasks in a background thread, the Worker & WorkerGroup
can be used:
// A Worker represents a Thread which will continuously execute tasks in the background
Worker worker = new Worker (new TaskQueue (), true, true);
// A WorkerGroup consists of multiple workers, all executing tasks from the same TaskQueue
WorkerGroup workerGroup = new WorkerGroup (4, new TaskQueue (), true, true);