Is wrapping a synchronous call in a Task.Run() to make it asynchronous beneficial?
.net, asp.net-web-api, async-await
Solution
I'd like to take advantage of some of the performance gains by going to asynchronous methods, but I want to avoid going into the neo4j api library and refactoring the synchronous methods to return async methods.
Sorry, you lose all the benefits of `async` on the server side if you just wrap synchronous code in `Task.Run`.
`async` is good on servers because asynchronous operations scale better than threads. But if you're using `Task.Run`, then you're using a thread anyway.
Problem
My motivation for this question is because I am creating a .net web API project that would be using an existing neo4j rest api client that has synchronous methods. I'd like to take advantage of some of the performance gains by going to asynchronous methods, but I want to avoid going into the neo4j api library and refactoring the synchronous methods to return async methods. I was wondering if wrapping the calls to the synchronous methods in an await Task.Run() would be beneficial at all. Specifically, what happens in the first example when the async result from httpClient calls the Wait() method, but the whole thing is wrapped in another await. Also keep in mind that I would be running this on AppHarbor cloud with what I believe is a single virtual core. So is the following ``` //what happens with the synchronous rest api client I am using HttpResponseMessage SendHttpRequest(HttpRequestMessage request) { var requestTask = httpClient.SendAsync(request); requestTask.Wait(); return requestTask.Result; } object result = await Task.Run(() => { return SendHttpRequest(request); }); ``` similar in performance to ``` return httpClient.SendAsync(request) ```