(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