How to delete a folder asynchronously

Question

I have a windows service running that deletes folders from network drive. I want to make the deleting asynchronous. How can this be done?

Right now i am looping through the directories and calling

Directory.Delete(fullPath, true);

Thanks

Very hard to see why that would be a requirement in a service, they already use threads. You could use another. — Hans Passant
– Hans Passant, Commented Jan 20, 2012 at 22:04
Put your directory delete in a method, and call it asynchronously. Very simple. Here is a great tutorial. You can also use asynchronous callbacks/events to post progress updates; codeproject.com/Articles/14931/Asynchronous-Method-Invocation — AnthonyBlake
– AnthonyBlake, Commented Jan 20, 2012 at 22:05
Why should a Windows service do things asynchronously? It runs in the background anyway. Asynchronous operations are usually used in order to keep the UI responsive instead of freezing it during long running operations. — Olivier Jacot-Descombes
– Olivier Jacot-Descombes, Commented Jan 20, 2012 at 22:06
@OlivierJacot-Descombes: A windows service should be responsive to start/stop requests. — Adam Robinson
– Adam Robinson, Commented Jan 20, 2012 at 22:11
@OlivierJacot-Descombes: Application.DoEvents is for WinForms applications. Windows services do not have a message loop. — Adam Robinson
– Adam Robinson, Commented Jan 20, 2012 at 22:37

vcsjones · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-20 22:09:01Z

11

I would use the Task Parallel Library:

Task.Factory.StartNew(path => Directory.Delete((string)path, true), fullPath);

answered Jan 20, 2012 at 22:09

vcsjones

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5 Comments

Adam Robinson Over a year ago

+1; beat me to it. And kudos for using the lighter-weight approach of passing the parameter instead of closing over the local.

stackoverflowuser Over a year ago

@vcsjones : will this be like call the method asynchronously and then it will be picked by io thread later ?

vcsjones Over a year ago

@stackoverflowuser This will call Directory.Delete in a task; which (may - probably) will be a thread from Thread Pool. This will allow your code to continue while the delete is happening on another thread.

nawfal Over a year ago

@vcsjones Isn't this against what is mentioned here: blogs.msdn.com/b/pfxteam/archive/2012/03/24/10287244.aspx ? I surely dont grok the async subject much I think.

Theodor Zoulias Over a year ago

The Task.Factory.StartNew method should not be used without configuring the TaskScheduler parameter explicitly. Even better don't use the Task.Factory.StartNew, and use Task.Run instead.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-22 22:06:24Z

1

If you are looping, you could use a parallel foreach

// assuming that you have a list string paths. // also assuming that it does not matter what order in which you delete them Parallel.ForEach(theListOfDirectories, x => Directory.Delete(x));

edited Feb 22, 2021 at 22:06

CommunityBot

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answered Jan 20, 2012 at 22:34

JMarsch

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1 Comment

Theodor Zoulias Over a year ago

FYI using the Parallel.ForEach method without specifying the MaxDegreeOfParallelism leads to thread-pool starvation. It is preferable to configure this option in order to get a consistent behavior, and not let the degree of parallelism be determined by how many threads happen to be currently available in the ThreadPool.

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