CancellationTokenSource vs. volatile boolean

Question

Are there any benefits for using a CancellationTokenSource over a volatile boolean field for signalling a Task to finish?

Answer 1

Of course yes. There are many. I'll list few.

• CancellationToken supports callbacks. You can be notified when the cancellation is requested.
• CancellationToken supports WaitHandle which you could wait for indefinitely or with a timeout.
• You can schedule the cancelation of CancellationToken using CancellationTokenSource.CancelAfter method.
• You can link your CancellationToken to another, so that when one is cancelled another can be considered as cancelled.
• By Task if you mean System.Threading.Tasks.Task a volatile boolean cannot transition the state of the Task to cancelled but CancellationToken can.