C# backgroundworker started within a for loop

Question

I have the following code to start a background worker:

foreach (var item in this.lstbxItems.Items)
{
    if (!bw.IsBusy)
        bw.RunWorkerAsync(item);
}

Is there a way to wait for the background worker ( bw ) to finish and then send to it the next item in the list?

Answer 1

This sounds like a perfect situation for using Microsoft's Reactive Extensions (NuGet "Rx-WinForms").

Your code would look something like this:

var query =
    from item in this.lstbxItems.Items.ToObservable()
    from result in Observable.Start(() => ProcessItem(item))
    select new { item, result };

IDisposable subscription =
    query
        .ObserveOn(this) /* marshals to UI-thread */
        .Subscribe(x =>
        {
            /* do something with each `x.item` & `x.result`
            as soon as they are asyncronously computed */
        });

If you needed to stop the computation before it completes naturally you can just call subscription.Dispose() .