BufferBlockT

(FIFO Queue: The data that comes in is the data that goes out)

In short, BufferBlock provides an unbounded or bounded buffer for storing instances of T.

You can “post” instances of T to the block, which cause the data being posted to be stored in a first-in-first-out (FIFO) order by the block.

You can “receive” from the block, which allows you to synchronously or asynchronously obtain instances of T previously stored or available in the future (again, FIFO).

Asynchronous Producer/Consumer with a Throttled Producer

// Hand-off through a bounded BufferBlock<T>
private static BufferBlock<int> _Buffer = new BufferBlock<int>(
    new DataflowBlockOptions { BoundedCapacity = 10 });

// Producer
private static async void Producer()
{
    while(true)
    {
        await _Buffer.SendAsync(Produce());
    }
}

// Consumer
private static async Task Consumer()
{
    while(true)
    {
        Process(await _Buffer.ReceiveAsync());
    } 
}

// Start the Producer and Consumer
private static async Task Run()
{
    await Task.WhenAll(Producer(), Consumer());
}

Introduction to TPL Dataflow by Stephen Toub

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