Re-using HttpClient but with a different Timeout setting per request?

Question

In order to reuse open TCP connections with HttpClient you have to share a single instance for all requests.

This means that we cannot simply i

Answer 1

Under the hood, HttpClient just uses a cancellation token to implement the timeout behavior. You can do the same directly if you want to vary it per request:

var cts = new CancellationTokenSource();
cts.CancelAfter(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(30));
await httpClient.GetAsync("http://www.google.com", cts.Token);

Note that the default timeout for HttpClient is 100 seconds, and the request will still be canceled at that point even if you've set a higher value at the request level. To fix this, set a "max" timeout on the HttpClient, which can be infinite:

httpClient.Timeout = System.Threading.Timeout.InfiniteTimeSpan;