How to Safely Cancel an Async Operation in C#

Asynchronous programming is essential for building responsive applications, but it comes with challenges - particularly when you need to cancel operations.

Here's how to safely implement cancellation in C#.

Using CancellationTokenSource

The key to proper cancellation is the CancellationTokenSource class. This provides a token that can be passed to async methods and monitored for cancellation requests.

// Create a cancellation source with timeout
var cts = new CancellationTokenSource(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
var token = cts.Token;

try
{
    // Pass token to async operations
    await DoLongRunningTaskAsync(token);
}
catch (OperationCanceledException)
{
    // Handle cancellation gracefully
    Console.WriteLine("Operation was canceled");
}
finally
{
    // Always dispose the CancellationTokenSource
    cts.Dispose();
}

Implementing Cancellation in Your Methods

When writing cancellable async methods, check for cancellation at appropriate points:

async Task DoLongRunningTaskAsync(CancellationToken token)
{
    // Check before starting expensive work
    token.ThrowIfCancellationRequested();
    
    for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++)
    {
        // Periodically check during loops
        if (token.IsCancellationRequested)
        {
            // Clean up resources if needed
            CleanupResources();
            
            // Then throw the standard exception
            throw new OperationCanceledException(token);
        }
        
        await Task.Delay(100, token); // Built-in methods accept tokens
    }
}

Best Practices

  1. Always dispose of CancellationTokenSource objects
  2. Use token.ThrowIfCancellationRequested() for cleaner code
  3. Check for cancellation before expensive operations
  4. Pass the token to all nested async calls
  5. Handle OperationCanceledException appropriately in your calling code

By following these patterns, you can ensure your async operations respond promptly to cancellation requests while maintaining clean, resource-efficient code.

0
5

Related

When working with URLs in C#, encoding is essential to ensure that special characters (like spaces, ?, &, and =) don’t break the URL structure. The recommended way to encode a string for a URL is by using Uri.EscapeDataString(), which converts unsafe characters into their percent-encoded equivalents.

string rawText = "hello world!";
string encodedText = Uri.EscapeDataString(rawText);

Console.WriteLine(encodedText); // Output: hello%20world%21

This method encodes spaces as %20, making it ideal for query parameters.

For ASP.NET applications, you can also use HttpUtility.UrlEncode() (from System.Web), which encodes spaces as +:

using System.Web;

string encodedText = HttpUtility.UrlEncode("hello world!");
Console.WriteLine(encodedText); // Output: hello+world%21

For .NET Core and later, Uri.EscapeDataString() is the preferred choice.

27
611

Reading a file line by line is useful when handling large files without loading everything into memory at once.

✅ Best Practice: Use File.ReadLines() which is more memory efficient.

Example

foreach (string line in File.ReadLines("file.txt"))
{
    Console.WriteLine(line);
}

Why use ReadLines()?

Reads one line at a time, reducing overall memory usage. Ideal for large files (e.g., logs, CSVs).

Alternative: Use StreamReader (More Control)

For scenarios where you need custom processing while reading the contents of the file:

using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader("file.txt"))
{
    string? line;
    while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(line);
    }
}

Why use StreamReader?

Lets you handle exceptions, encoding, and buffering. Supports custom processing (e.g., search for a keyword while reading).

When to Use ReadAllLines()? If you need all lines at once, use:

string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines("file.txt");

Caution: Loads the entire file into memory—avoid for large files!

3
252

Enums are a great way to define a set of named constants in C#, but what if you need to iterate over all values dynamically? You can use** Enum.GetValues()** to loop through an enum without hardcoding values.

enum Days { Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday }

foreach (Days day in Enum.GetValues(typeof(Days)))
{
    Console.WriteLine(day);
}

This would output the following:

Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday

Alternative: Using Enum.GetNames() If you only need the string names, use Enum.GetNames() instead:

foreach (string name in Enum.GetNames(typeof(Days)))
{
    Console.WriteLine(name);
}
1
138