So, I’ve been wanting to get back to playing with C# for a while, and finally have had the opportunity.

I’ve also been wanting to play with the Task library in .NET and see if I could get it to do something interesting, well below is the result.

The code below, running in a .NET 4 project, will run two SQL SELECT statements against the AdventureWorks2012 database.

There are three tasks in here, ParallelTask 1 and 2, and a timing task. The Parallel task takes a Connection String and a query as inputs, and passes out a Status Message. One of the important points with a task is that the task has to be self contained. This is why the connection is instantiated within the task.

I also added in a Timing task (ParallelTiming) so I could pass out a ping message.

The whole thing is controlled by the code in the main section, which is used to start the three tasks, with their appropriate parameters.

After this it awaits the tasks completing, then passes out the resulting return messages.

Try it out; it’s good fun and all you need is SQL Server, AdventureWorks and something to build C# projects.

You can download the code here

Have fun!

/// Parallel_SQL demonstration code
/// From Nick Haslam
/// http://blog.nhaslam.com
/// 16/9/2013

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace Parallel_SQL
{
class Program
{
///
/// First Parallel task
///

///Connection string details ///Query to execute ///Status message to pass back ///
static Task ParallelTask1(string sConnString, string sQuery, Action StatusMessage)
{
return Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
{
SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(sConnString);
conn.Open();

StatusMessage(“Running Query”);

SqlDataReader reader = null;
SqlCommand sqlCommand = new SqlCommand(sQuery, conn);

reader = sqlCommand.ExecuteReader();

while (reader.Read())
{
StatusMessage(reader[0].ToString());
}

return “Task 1 Complete”;
});
}

///
/// Second Parallel task
///

///Connection string details ///Query to execute ///Status message to pass back ///
static Task ParallelTask2(string sConnString, string sQuery, Action StatusMessage)
{
return Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
{
SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(sConnString);
conn.Open();
StatusMessage(“Running Query”);

SqlDataReader reader = null;
SqlCommand sqlCommand = new SqlCommand(sQuery, conn);

reader = sqlCommand.ExecuteReader();

while (reader.Read())
{
StatusMessage(reader[0].ToString());
}

return “Task 2 Complete”;
});
}

///
/// Timing Task
///

///Milliseconds between ping ///Status message to pass back ///
static Task ParallelTiming(int iMSPause, Action StatusMessage)
{
return Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
{
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(iMSPause); StatusMessage(“******************** PING ********************”); } return “Timing task done”; }); } static void Main(string[] args) { string sConnString = “server=.; Trusted_Connection=yes; database=AdventureWorks2012;”; try { var Task1Control = ParallelTask1(sConnString, “SELECT top 500 TransactionID FROM Production.TransactionHistory”, (update) =>
{
Console.WriteLine(String.Format(“{0} – {1}”, DateTime.Now, update));
});
var Task2Control = ParallelTask2(sConnString,
“SELECT top 500 SalesOrderDetailID FROM sales.SalesOrderDetail”, (update) =>
{
Console.WriteLine(String.Format(“{0} – \t\t{1}”, DateTime.Now, update));
});

var TimingTaskControl = ParallelTiming(250, (update) =>
{
Console.WriteLine(String.Format(“{0} – \t\t\t{1}”, DateTime.Now, update));
});

// Await Completion of the tasks
Console.WriteLine(“Task 1 Status – {0}”, Task1Control.Result);
Console.WriteLine(“Task 2 Status – {0}”, Task2Control.Result);
Console.WriteLine(“Timing Task Status – {0}”, TimingTaskControl.Result);
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());
}
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
}