How do I abort/cancel TPL Tasks?

Question

In a thread, I create some System.Threading.Task and start each task.

When I do a .Abort() to kill the thread, the tasks are not aborted.

How can I transmit the .Abort() to my tasks ?

Answer 1

You can't. Tasks use background threads from the thread pool. Also canceling threads using the Abort method is not recommended. You may take a look at the following blog post which explains a proper way of canceling tasks using cancellation tokens. Here's an example:

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        var ts = new CancellationTokenSource();
        CancellationToken ct = ts.Token;
        Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
        {
            while (true)
            {
                // do some heavy work here
                Thread.Sleep(100);
                if (ct.IsCancellationRequested)
                {
                    // another thread decided to cancel
                    Console.WriteLine("task canceled");
                    break;
                }
            }
        }, ct);

        // Simulate waiting 3s for the task to complete
        Thread.Sleep(3000);

        // Can't wait anymore => cancel this task 
        ts.Cancel();
        Console.ReadLine();
    }
}