How to: Cancel a Task and Its Children

using System;
using System.Collections.Concurrent;
using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

public class Example
{
   public static void Main()
   {
      var tokenSource = new CancellationTokenSource();
      var token = tokenSource.Token;

      // Store references to the tasks so that we can wait on them and  
      // observe their status after cancellation.
      Task t;
      var tasks = new ConcurrentBag<Task>();

      Console.WriteLine("Press any key to begin tasks...");
      Console.WriteLine("To terminate the example, press 'c' to cancel and exit...");
      Console.ReadKey();
      Console.WriteLine();

      // Request cancellation of a single task when the token source is canceled. 
      // Pass the token to the user delegate, and also to the task so it can  
      // handle the exception correctly.
      t = Task.Factory.StartNew( () => DoSomeWork(1, token), token);
      Console.WriteLine("Task {0} executing", t.Id);
      tasks.Add(t);

      // Request cancellation of a task and its children. Note the token is passed 
      // to (1) the user delegate and (2) as the second argument to StartNew, so  
      // that the task instance can correctly handle the OperationCanceledException.
      t = Task.Factory.StartNew( () => {
                                     // Create some cancelable child tasks. 
                                     Task tc;
                                     for (int i = 3; i <= 10; i++) {
                                        // For each child task, pass the same token 
                                        // to each user delegate and to StartNew.
                                        tc = Task.Factory.StartNew( iteration => DoSomeWork((int)iteration, token), i, token);
                                        Console.WriteLine("Task {0} executing", tc.Id);
                                        tasks.Add(tc);
                                        // Pass the same token again to do work on the parent task.  
                                        // All will be signaled by the call to tokenSource.Cancel below.
                                        DoSomeWork(2, token);
                                     }
                                  },
                                  token);

        Console.WriteLine("Task {0} executing", t.Id);
        tasks.Add(t);

        // Request cancellation from the UI thread. 
        if (Console.ReadKey().KeyChar == 'c') {
            tokenSource.Cancel();
            Console.WriteLine("\nTask cancellation requested.");

            // Optional: Observe the change in the Status property on the task. 
            // It is not necessary to wait on tasks that have canceled. However, 
            // if you do wait, you must enclose the call in a try-catch block to 
            // catch the TaskCanceledExceptions that are thrown. If you do  
            // not wait, no exception is thrown if the token that was passed to the  
            // StartNew method is the same token that requested the cancellation.
        }

        try {
            Task.WaitAll(tasks.ToArray());
        }
        catch (AggregateException e) {
           Console.WriteLine("\nAggregateException thrown with the following inner exceptions:");
           // Display information about each exception. 
           foreach (var v in e.InnerExceptions) {
              if (v is TaskCanceledException)
                 Console.WriteLine("   TaskCanceledException: Task {0}",
                                   ((TaskCanceledException) v).Task.Id);
              else
                 Console.WriteLine("   Exception: {0}", v.GetType().Name);
           }
           Console.WriteLine();
        }

        // Display status of all tasks. 
        foreach (var task in tasks)
            Console.WriteLine("Task {0} status is now {1}", task.Id, task.Status);
   }

   static void DoSomeWork(int taskNum, CancellationToken ct)
   {
      // Was cancellation already requested? 
      if (ct.IsCancellationRequested == true) {
         Console.WriteLine("Task {0} was cancelled before it got started.",
                           taskNum);
         ct.ThrowIfCancellationRequested();
      }

      int maxIterations = 100;

      // NOTE!!! A "TaskCanceledException was unhandled 
      // by user code" error will be raised here if "Just My Code"
      // is enabled on your computer. On Express editions JMC is 
      // enabled and cannot be disabled. The exception is benign. 
      // Just press F5 to continue executing your code. 
      for (int i = 0; i <= maxIterations; i++) {
         // Do a bit of work. Not too much. 
         var sw = new SpinWait();
         for (int j = 0; j <= 100; j++)
            sw.SpinOnce();

         if (ct.IsCancellationRequested) {
            Console.WriteLine("Task {0} cancelled", taskNum);
            ct.ThrowIfCancellationRequested();
         }
      }
   }
}