How to use WPF Background Worker

Question

In my application I need to perform a series of initialization steps, these take 7-8 seconds to complete during which my UI becomes unresponsive. To resolve this I perform the initialization in a separate thread:

public void Initialization()
{
    Thread initThread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(InitializationThread));
    initThread.Start();
}

public void InitializationThread()
{
    outputMessage("Initializing...");
    //DO INITIALIZATION
    outputMessage("Initialization Complete");
}

I have read a few articles about the BackgroundWorker and how it should allow me to keep my application responsive without ever having to write a thread to perform lengthy tasks but I haven't had any success trying to implement it, could anyone tell how I would do this using the BackgroundWorker?

Hiragana

I found this tutorial useful, it has several concise examples: elegantcode.com/2009/07/03/… – Busybody

I get privacy error when clicking on that link. – Icarus

Answer 1

1. Add using

   using System.ComponentModel;
   

2. Declare Background Worker:

   private readonly BackgroundWorker worker = new BackgroundWorker();
   

3. Subscribe to events:

   worker.DoWork += worker_DoWork;
   worker.RunWorkerCompleted += worker_RunWorkerCompleted;
   

4. Implement two methods:

   private void worker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
   {
       // run all background tasks here
   }
   
   private void worker_RunWorkerCompleted(object sender, 
                                              RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e)
   {
       //update ui once worker complete his work
   }
   

5. Run worker async whenever your need.

   worker.RunWorkerAsync();
   

6. Track progress (optional, but often useful)

   a) subscribe to ProgressChanged event and use ReportProgress(Int32) in DoWork

   b) set worker.WorkerReportsProgress = true; (credits to @zagy)

Scarification

Is there a way to access the DataContext in those methods? – Anabantid

Answer 2

You may want to also look into using Task instead of background workers.

The easiest way to do this is in your example is Task.Run(InitializationThread);.

There are several benefits to using tasks instead of background workers. For example, the new async/await features in .net 4.5 use Task for threading. Here is some documentation about Task https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.threading.tasks.task

Schwarz

Sorry to unearth this thread, but .net 4.0 and 4.5 added some cool stuff that is way easier to use than BackgroundWorker. Hoping to steer people to it. – Schwarz

Now that this answer is super old, check out async and await. These are language integrated ways to use tasks in a much more readable way. – Schwarz

Answer 3

using System;  
using System.ComponentModel;   
using System.Threading;    
namespace BackGroundWorkerExample  
{   
    class Program  
    {  
        private static BackgroundWorker backgroundWorker;  

        static void Main(string[] args)  
        {  
            backgroundWorker = new BackgroundWorker  
            {  
                WorkerReportsProgress = true,  
                WorkerSupportsCancellation = true  
            };  

            backgroundWorker.DoWork += backgroundWorker_DoWork;  
            //For the display of operation progress to UI.    
            backgroundWorker.ProgressChanged += backgroundWorker_ProgressChanged;  
            //After the completation of operation.    
            backgroundWorker.RunWorkerCompleted += backgroundWorker_RunWorkerCompleted;  
            backgroundWorker.RunWorkerAsync("Press Enter in the next 5 seconds to Cancel operation:");  

            Console.ReadLine();  

            if (backgroundWorker.IsBusy)  
            { 
                backgroundWorker.CancelAsync();  
                Console.ReadLine();  
            }  
        }  

        static void backgroundWorker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)  
        {  
            for (int i = 0; i < 200; i++)  
            {  
                if (backgroundWorker.CancellationPending)  
                {  
                    e.Cancel = true;  
                    return;  
                }  

                backgroundWorker.ReportProgress(i);  
                Thread.Sleep(1000);  
                e.Result = 1000;  
            }  
        }  

        static void backgroundWorker_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)  
        {  
            Console.WriteLine("Completed" + e.ProgressPercentage + "%");  
        }  

        static void backgroundWorker_RunWorkerCompleted(object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e)  
        {  

            if (e.Cancelled)  
            {  
                Console.WriteLine("Operation Cancelled");  
            }  
            else if (e.Error != null)  
            {  
                Console.WriteLine("Error in Process :" + e.Error);  
            }  
            else  
            {  
                Console.WriteLine("Operation Completed :" + e.Result);  
            }  
        }  
    }  
} 

Also, referr the below link you will understand the concepts of Background:

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/1c8574/threads-in-wpf/

Wittie

Answer 4

I found this (WPF Multithreading: Using the BackgroundWorker and Reporting the Progress to the UI. link) to contain the rest of the details which are missing from @Andrew's answer.

The one thing I found very useful was that the worker thread couldn't access the MainWindow's controls (in it's own method), however when using a delegate inside the main windows event handler it was possible.

worker.RunWorkerCompleted += delegate(object s, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs args)
{
    pd.Close();
    // Get a result from the asynchronous worker
    T t = (t)args.Result
    this.ExampleControl.Text = t.BlaBla;
};

Mehitable