TaskCaching

See my blog post for full explanation.

TaskCaching provides a means for easily caching long-lasting or expensive Task operations in .NET.

Its features ensure that:

• No parallel or unnecessary operations to get a value will be started.
• Failed Tasks are not cached (no negative caching).
• Cache users can't get invalidated results from the cache, even if the value is invalidated during an await.
• Optionally, Tasks can be automatically evicted from the cache as soon as they complete.
• It targets the .NET Standard 2.0 so should be usable in most .NET projects.

Currently there are two packages/projects:

1. TaskCaching.Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory

This should probably be the go-to implementation right now.

The TaskCaching.Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory package has a dependency on and supports ANY version of Microsoft's Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory NuGet package.

It adds an IMemoryCache.GetOrCreateTask<T>(...) extension method that persists Lazy<Task<T>> objects in the cache, fulfilling the above mentioned features.

This method differs from Microsoft's IMemoryCache.GetOrCreateAsync<T>(...), which only caches the result of a Task after it has successfully completed. Instead, this method caches a Lazy instance of the Task itself without waiting for it - allowing long-running/expensive asynchronous operations to be shared and avoiding concurrent duplication of work.

How to use it?

Install the NuGet package first, E.g.:

dotnet add package TaskCaching.Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory

Now simply take an existing MemoryCache object or create a new one and use the GetOrCreateTask extension-method:

async Task<int> DoSomeSlowTask(int i) {
    Console.WriteLine("Waiting " + i);
    await Task.Delay(1000);
    Console.WriteLine("Waited " + i);
    return i;
}

using var cache = new MemoryCache(new MemoryCacheOptions());

//The following calls to the cache are going to run concurrently as we're not awaiting them yet
var task1 = cache.GetOrCreateTask("uniqueKeyForTask", e => DoSomeSlowTask(1));
var task2 = cache.GetOrCreateTask("uniqueKeyForTask", e => DoSomeSlowTask(2)); //This call to DoSomeSlowTask(2) will not run
var task3 = cache.GetOrCreateTask("uniqueKeyForTask", e => DoSomeSlowTask(3)); //This call to DoSomeSlowTask(3) will not run

await Task.WhenAll(task1, task2, task3);

Assert.Equal(1, await task1); //The result of DoSomeSlowTask(1) was returned by the cache
Assert.Equal(1, await task2); //The result of DoSomeSlowTask(1) was returned by the cache
Assert.Equal(1, await task3); //The result of DoSomeSlowTask(1) was returned by the cache

What if you don't want completed tasks remaining in the cache? You could manually remove them, or set appropriate expiration policies, but alternatively you can tell GetOrCreateTask to evict them as soon as they complete:

async Task<int> DoSomeSlowTask(int i) {
    Console.WriteLine("Waiting " + i);
    await Task.Delay(1000);
    Console.WriteLine("Waited " + i);
    return i;
}

using var cache = new MemoryCache(new MemoryCacheOptions());

//These following cache calls are being awaited so will run in sequence, however the DoSomeSlowTask(1) task will 
//immediately be evicted upon its completion, before the next cache call, because of the expireOnCompletion parameter
var value1 = await cache.GetOrCreateTask("uniqueKeyForTask", e => DoSomeSlowTask(1), expireOnCompletion:true);

//The DoSomeSlowTask(1) task is no longer in the cache anymore, so DoSomeSlowTask(2) will now run
var value2 = await cache.GetOrCreateTask("uniqueKeyForTask", e => DoSomeSlowTask(2), expireOnCompletion:true);

Assert.NotEqual(value1, value2);

2. TaskCaching

The ITaskCache and TaskCache in the TaskCaching package are legacy of the original project.

Refer to the earlier blog post (https://tech.mikkohaapanen.com/net-c-cache-class-for-caching-task-objects/) to read more about this.

The blog post may be quite old now, but is mostly still relevant. The primary things which have changed are:

• TaskCache USED to use System.Runtime.Caching.MemoryCache internally, but now uses Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory instead.
• TaskCache is now just a thin wrapper around a MemoryCache instance and calls the GetOrCreateTask extension method.