How to interrupt Console.ReadLine

Question

Is it possible to stop the Console.ReadLine() programmatically?

I have a console application: the much of the logic runs on a different thread and in th

Answer 1

I was also looking for a way to stop reading from console in certain conditions. the solution i came up with was to make a non blocking version of read line with these two methods.

static IEnumerator> AsyncConsoleInput()
{
    var e = loop(); e.MoveNext(); return e;
    IEnumerator> loop()
    {
        while (true) yield return Task.Run(() => Console.ReadLine());
    }
}

static Task ReadLine(this IEnumerator> console)
{
    if (console.Current.IsCompleted) console.MoveNext();
    return console.Current;
}

this allows us to have ReadLine on separate thread and we can wait for it or use it in other places conditionally.

var console = AsyncConsoleInput();

var task = Task.Run(() =>
{
     // your task on separate thread
});

if (Task.WaitAny(console.ReadLine(), task) == 0) // if ReadLine finished first
{
    task.Wait();
    var x = console.Current.Result; // last user input (await instead of Result in async method)
}
else // task finished first 
{
    var x = console.ReadLine(); // this wont issue another read line because user did not input anything yet. 
}