Retry loop for asynchronous HTTP requests

Question

I've got a method that needs to PUT data to a web API. Sometimes the connection fails, so I needed a way to do retries, but if the retries fail, I still need to capture the exception and re-throw it.

I've got something that I "believe" is working, but I've got a stupid throw at the end. Is there a better, more concise way to do this when working with async tasks?

private const int TotalNumberOfAttempts = 10;

public static async Task<HttpResponseMessage> PutWithRetriesAsync(string url,
    HttpContent content,
    AuthenticationHeaderValue authenticationHeaderValue,
    MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue mediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue)
{
    var numberOfAttempts = 0;
    ExceptionDispatchInfo capturedException;

    do
    {
        try
        {
            return await PutAsync(url, content, authenticationHeaderValue, mediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue);
        }
        catch (AggregateException ex)
        {
            capturedException = ExceptionDispatchInfo.Capture(ex);
            numberOfAttempts++;
        }
    } while (numberOfAttempts < TotalNumberOfAttempts);

    if (capturedException != null)
    {
        capturedException.Throw();
    }
    throw new Exception("That will never be thrown");
}

Answer 1

I would rewrite your code into a while (true) loop, that can only be exited using the return in your try or using a throw; inside a condition in your catch:

while (true)
{
    try
    {
        return await PutAsync(url, content, authenticationHeaderValue, mediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue);
    }
    catch
    {
        numberOfAttempts++;
        if (numberOfAttempts >= TotalNumberOfAttempts)
            throw;
    }
}

This way, you don't need ExceptionDispatchInfo or the useless (but required by the compiler) throw at the end.

I also changed catch (AggregateException ex) to catch all exceptions, because await usually doesn't throw AggregateException (unlike task.Wait() or task.Result).

Answer 2

How about:

private const int TotalNumberOfAttempts = 10;

public static async Task<HttpResponseMessage> PutWithRetriesAsync(string url,
    HttpContent content,
    AuthenticationHeaderValue authenticationHeaderValue,
    MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue mediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue)
{
    var exceptions = new List<Exception>();
    for(int i = 0; i < TotalNumberOfAttempts; i++)
    {
        try
        {
            return await PutAsync(url, content, authenticationHeaderValue, mediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue);
        }
        catch (AggregateException ex)
        {
            exceptions.Add(ex);
        }
    } 
    throw new AggregateException(exceptions);
}

You can easily abstract this functionality into an extension method to provide retry logic for any arbitrary Func<Task>.