Adding cancelation support to long running threads

When you execute a long running process on a different thread, to keep the UI responsive during the operation, you may want to provide a functionality to cancel the operation. This can be done on an on-demand basis.

In this recipe, we will learn how to add cancellation support to the existing long running operation that we have built in the previous recipe.

Getting ready

We will be using the same example that we used in the previous recipe. You can copy the entire CH10.ThreadingDemo1 project folder and give it a new name, CH10.ThreadingDemo2. Launch Visual Studio and open the new (CH10.ThreadingDemo2) project inside it.

How to do it...

Follow these steps to update the existing project and to have cancellation support during the long running process:

1. Navigate to the MainWindow.xaml file and modify the UI to have a Cancel button in it. Add the following button control inside StackPanel, and label it as Cancel:

<Button x:Name="cancelButton" 
 ...