How to write an async method with out parameter?

You can't have async methods with ref or out parameters.

Lucian Wischik explains why this is not possible on this MSDN thread: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/d2f48a52-e35a-4948-844d-828a1a6deb74/why-async-methods-cannot-have-ref-or-out-parameters

As for why async methods don't support out-by-reference parameters? (or ref parameters?) That's a limitation of the CLR. We chose to implement async methods in a similar way to iterator methods -- i.e. through the compiler transforming the method into a state-machine-object. The CLR has no safe way to store the address of an "out parameter" or "reference parameter" as a field of an object. The only way to have supported out-by-reference parameters would be if the async feature were done by a low-level CLR rewrite instead of a compiler-rewrite. We examined that approach, and it had a lot going for it, but it would ultimately have been so costly that it'd never have happened.

A typical workaround for this situation is to have the async method return a Tuple instead. You could re-write your method as such:

public async Task Method1()
{
    var tuple = await GetDataTaskAsync();
    int op = tuple.Item1;
    int result = tuple.Item2;
}

public async Task<Tuple<int, int>> GetDataTaskAsync()
{
    //...
    return new Tuple<int, int>(1, 2);
}

The C#7+ Solution is to use implicit tuple syntax.

    private async Task<(bool IsSuccess, IActionResult Result)> TryLogin(OpenIdConnectRequest request)
    { 
        return (true, BadRequest(new OpenIdErrorResponse
        {
            Error = OpenIdConnectConstants.Errors.AccessDenied,
            ErrorDescription = "Access token provided is not valid."
        }));
    }

return result utilizes the method signature defined property names. e.g:

var foo = await TryLogin(request);
if (foo.IsSuccess)
     return foo.Result;

Tags:

C#

Async Await