Early Exceptions for Iterator and async Methods

One of the first things you would need to be vary of while working with Iterator methods and async methods is exception handling. Both Iterator methods and async methods delay the execution of your code, right until you need the result, but it also results in delayed exceptions.

Late Exception With Iterator Methods

Let’s consider a typical example. The following method generates positive integers from 1 to ‘n’. Of course, you could do this with Enumerable.Range but, that’s not the whole point.

void Main()
{
var maxValue = 0;
var generatedCollection = GenerateSequence(maxValue);
Console.WriteLine("No Exception raised yet");
foreach(var item in generatedCollection)
Console.WriteLine(item);
}

IEnumerable<int> GenerateSequence(int maxValue)
{
if(lastNumber <= 0)
throw new Exception($"Parameter {nameof(maxValue)} should be positive, non-zero");

for(int i=0;i<maxValue;i++)
yield return i;
}

The above method has a precondition which validates if the maxValue parameter is a positive, non-zero number. However if one was to execute the code, one can notice that exception isn’t raised until the result is consumed. This is expected. But, there could be scenarios where one might require you to have methods raise early exceptions.

Early Exception With Iterator Methods

Let’s rewrite the method with a little bit of tweak¹.

void Main()
{
var maxValue = 0;
var generatedCollection = GenerateSequence(maxValue);
Console.WriteLine("No Exception raised yet");
foreach(var item in generatedCollection)
Console.WriteLine(item);
}

IEnumerable<int> GenerateSequence(int lastNumber)
{
if(lastNumber <= 0)
throw new Exception($"Parameter {nameof(lastNumber)} should be positive, non-zero");

return Generate();
IEnumerable<int> Generate()
{
for(int i=0;i<lastNumber;i++)
yield return i;
}
}

Try executing the code, and you can notice that now it supports early exception. This very approach could be used for async method. Let’s do the problematic code first.

Late Exception with async Methods

async Task<int> Increment(int numberToPrint)
{
if(numberToPrint <= 0)
throw new Exception($"Parameter {nameof(numberToPrint)} should be positive, non-zero");

return await Task.FromResult(++numberToPrint);
}

// Client code
var value = 0;
var task = Increment(value);
Console.WriteLine("No Exception raised yet");
await task;

The problem with late exceptions is visible in the above code as well. The exception is not raised where the method is called (in code), but rather it is raised when the Task is awaited.

Early Exception with async Methods

Task<int> Increment(int numberToPrint)
{
if(numberToPrint <= 0)
throw new Exception($"Parameter {nameof(numberToPrint)} should be positive, non-zero");

return Increment();
async Task<int> Increment()
{
return await Task.FromResult(++numberToPrint);
}
}

// Client Code
var value = 0;
var task = Increment(value);
Console.WriteLine("No Exception raised yet");
await task;

Reference