C# Unity trying to figure out how to use Coroutine

Without using threads, assuming you can modify longExecutionFunction, and it looks something like this:

void longExecutionFunction() { mediumExecutionFunction(); mediumExecutionFunction(); while(working) { mediumExecutionFunction(); } } 

You could modify it to look like:

IEnumerator longExecutionFunction() { mediumExecutionFunction(); yield return null; mediumExecutionFunction(); yield return null; while(working) { mediumExecutionFunction(); yield return null; } } 

Then modify the calling code something like:

StartCoroutine(GetSuggestions()); IEnumerator GetSuggestions() { yield return longExecutionFunction(); //all done! } 

This would then do one "medium length thing" per update, keeping the game from hanging. If, and how finely you can break up the work inside longExecutionFunction depends on your code inside it.

You would need to start longExecutionFunction in another thread. You may want to look at this article to read about threading: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.threading.thread.aspx

Code Example:

var thread = new System.Threading.Thread(new System.Threading.ThreadStart(() => { longExecutionFunction(); })); thread.Start(); 

If you aren't familiar with threads you should read up on them before using them. :)

You should use Threads combined with a coroutine.

StartCoroutine(MyCoroutine()); [...] IEnumerator MyCoroutine() { Thread thread = new Thread(() => { longExecutionFunction(); }); thread.Start(); while (thread.IsAlive) yield return 0; // ... Use data here } 

However you cannot use any unity-objects or methods inside the longExecutionFunction, because unity is not thread safe. So you need to calculate all your data inside the longExecutionFunction and initialize unity objects when the method has returned.