.NET 4.5 Baby Steps, Part 5: Some More Interesting Blocks

Introduction

We have seen the IDataFlowBlock, in three different implementations and now we will look at a few more.

BroadcastBlock<T>

In the BatchBlock we saw that if you had multiple subscribers, messages are delivered to subscribers in a round robin way, but what about if you want to send the same message to all providers? The solution is the BoardcastBlock<T>.

static BroadcastBlock<string> pubSub = new BroadcastBlock<string>(s =>
    {
        return s + " relayed from publisher";
    });

static async void Process()
{
    var message = await pubSub.ReceiveAsync();
    Console.WriteLine(message);
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    // setup 5 subscribers
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
    {
        Process();
    }

    pubSub.Post(DateTime.Now.ToLongTimeString());

    Console.ReadLine();
}

TransformBlock<TInput,TOutput>

The next interesting block is the transform block which works similar to the action block, except that the input and output can be different types and so we can transform the data internally.

static TransformBlock<int, string> pubSub = new TransformBlock<int, string>(i =>
    {
        return string.Format("we got: {0}", i);
    });

static async void Process()
{
    while (true)
    {
        var message = await pubSub.ReceiveAsync();
        Console.WriteLine(message);
    }
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Process();
     
    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
    {            
        pubSub.Post(i);
        Thread.Sleep(1000);
    }

    Console.ReadLine();
}