🔄 Understanding CancellationToken in .NET
The CancellationToken is a powerful feature in .NET that enables cooperative cancellation of asynchronous or long-running operations. It’s especially useful when building responsive, scalable, and efficient applications.
✅ Why use CancellationToken?
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🛠️ Resource Management
Allows cancellation of operations that are no longer needed, helping to free up memory, threads, and other system resources.
Example: Canceling a database query if a user navigates away from a page. -
⚡ Responsiveness
Improves application responsiveness by enabling timely exits from tasks that have become obsolete.
Example: Canceling a file upload if the user presses a “Cancel” button. -
⏱️ Timeout Handling
Offers a clean and standardized approach to implement timeouts.
Example: Canceling a web API call if it doesn’t respond within 5 seconds. -
🔗 Propagation Across Layers
Enables cancellation to flow through method chains or across components in a structured way.
Example: A cancellation token passed from a controller down to service and repository layers. -
📐 Standardized Pattern
Promotes a consistent and unified method for handling cancellation throughout the .NET ecosystem, making code easier to understand and maintain.
