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Concurrency and async

G#'s production concurrency surface is built on three pieces:

  • scope { ... } — structured-concurrency blocks that wait for the work they own and surface its failures.
  • async func + await — task-based asynchrony that interoperates with the .NET Task and Task[T] types.
  • sequence[T] + async sequence[T] — synchronous and asynchronous iterators built on yield and consumed with for / await for.

This guide focuses on the always-available surface. The optional Go-flavored layer (go, chan T, select, close, make(chan ...)) lives in Extensions: Go-flavored concurrency.

scope — structured concurrency​

scope { ... } runs its body and, before returning, joins every async operation that was registered with it. The two things that register with the enclosing scope are:

  1. await expr inside the scope — the awaited task becomes part of the scope's join set.
  2. go call(...) inside the scope when import Gsharp.Extensions.Go is present — the goroutine task is registered and joined.

Either way, exceptions from registered work surface as the scope unwinds, instead of being silently dropped.

import System
import System.Threading.Tasks

async func work(label string) {
    await Task.Delay(1)
    Console.WriteLine("done: $label")
}

scope {
    work("a").Wait()
    work("b").Wait()
}

Console.WriteLine("after scope")

Use scope when a parent operation should not return before its children. If you find yourself reaching for a Task[] array and Task.WhenAll, a scope block is usually the simpler shape.

async func and await​

async func declares a function that produces a Task (for void) or Task[T] (for a value return). await expr suspends the surrounding async function until the awaited task completes and yields its result.

AsyncTask.gs
package GSharp.Samples.AsyncTask

import System
import System.Threading.Tasks

async func compute(n int32) int32 {
    await Task.Delay(5)
    return n * 2
}

async func runAll() int32 {
    let a = await compute(3)
    let b = await compute(4)
    Console.WriteLine("a = $a")
    Console.WriteLine("b = $b")
    return 0
}

runAll().Wait()
Console.WriteLine("done")

Top-level scripts that need to drive an async entry point can await inside a scope, or call .Wait() (or .GetAwaiter().GetResult()) on the returned task when blocking is acceptable.

Async function type clauses are written async (T) -> R and lower to (T) -> Task[R] (or (T) -> Task for void). Writing the explicit task type in the return slot of an async (T) -> ... clause is diagnosed — the async marker already supplies the task shape.

// Field that holds an async callback.
var onReady (string) -> Task = (msg string) -> Task.CompletedTask
var publish async (string) -> void = (msg string) -> Console.WriteLine(msg)

await is a prefix expression and is only valid inside async contexts; using it elsewhere or on a non-awaitable operand is diagnosed.

Sequences and async sequences​

A function returning sequence[T] can use yield to produce values lazily; the compiler emits a synchronous iterator that materializes each value on demand.

func numbers() sequence[int32] {
    yield 1
    yield 2
    yield 3
}

for n in numbers() {
    Console.WriteLine(n)
}

async sequence[T] is the asynchronous counterpart and is consumed with await for. The compiler lowers it to IAsyncEnumerable[T], so it interoperates directly with .NET async streams.

async sequence[int32] pulses() {
    for i in 1 ... 4 {
        await Task.Delay(5)
        yield i
    }
}

async func consume() {
    await for n in pulses() {
        Console.WriteLine(n)
    }
}

Combine scope with await for to bound the lifetime of an async iterator. The scope joins the iterator's outstanding work before it returns.

Cleanup and concurrency​

defer and using are scoped constructs and compose naturally with scope:

scope {
    using let stream = File.OpenRead(path)
    let total = await ProcessAsync(stream)
    Console.WriteLine("total: $total")
}

Prefer using for any value that implements IDisposable (or IAsyncDisposable in async contexts) and defer for small cleanup calls that are not themselves represented by a disposable value.

Concurrency model​

The async lowering preserves loop back-edges across suspension points, so awaits inside for, while, and nested loops behave the same as they do in straight-line code. The runtime is the standard .NET Task/Task<T> machinery, so synchronization primitives (SemaphoreSlim, channels, locks) from System.Threading.* are all available through normal imports.

See also​