Using a CancellationToken to cancel a task without explicitly checking within the task?

Question

Background:

I have a web application which kicks off long running (and stateless) tasks:

var          


        

Answer 1

If you are OK with the implications of Thread.Abort (disposables not disposed, locks not released, application state corrupted), then here is how you could implement non-cooperative cancellation by aborting the task's dedicated thread.

private static Task RunAbortable(Func function,
    CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
    var tcs = new TaskCompletionSource();
    var thread = new Thread(() =>
    {
        try
        {
            TResult result;
            using (cancellationToken.Register(Thread.CurrentThread.Abort))
            {
                result = function();
            }
            tcs.SetResult(result);
        }
        catch (ThreadAbortException)
        {
            tcs.TrySetCanceled();
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            tcs.TrySetException(ex);
        }
    });
    thread.IsBackground = true;
    thread.Start();
    return tcs.Task;
}

Usage example:

var cts = new CancellationTokenSource();
var task = RunAbortable(() => DoWork(foo), cts.Token);
task.Wait();