Task And Thread In C#

This article describes the definition and uses of Task And Thread:

• What is Task?
• What is Thread?
• Why do we need Task?
• Why do we need Thread?
• How to implement Task
• How to implement Thread
• Differences between Task And Thread

What is Task in C#?

.NET framework provides Threading.Tasks class to let you create tasks and run them asynchronously. A task is an object that represents some work that should be done. The task can tell you if the work is completed and if the operation returns a result, the task gives you the result.

What is Thread?

.NET Framework has thread-associated classes in System.Threading namespace.  A Thread is a small set of executable instructions.

Why we need Tasks?

It can be used whenever you want to execute something in parallel. Asynchronous implementation is easy in a task, using’ async’ and ‘await’ keywords.

Why we need a Thread?

When the time comes when the application is required to perform few tasks at the same time.

Here is a beginner tutorial on Introduction to Threading in C# 

How to Create a Task

static void Main(string[] args) {  
    Task < string > obTask = Task.Run(() => (  
        return“ Hello”));  
    Console.WriteLine(obTask.result);  
}

How to Create a Thread

static void Main(string[] args) {  
    Thread thread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(getMyName));  
    thread.Start();  
}  
public void getMyName() {} 

Differences Between Task And Thread

Here are some differences between a task and a thread.

1. The Thread class is used for creating and manipulating a thread in Windows. A Task represents some asynchronous operation and is part of the Task Parallel Library, a set of APIs for running tasks asynchronously and in parallel.
2. The task can return a result. There is no direct mechanism to return the result from a thread.
3. Task supports cancellation through the use of cancellation tokens. But Thread doesn't.
4. A task can have multiple processes happening at the same time. Threads can only have one task running at a time.
5. We can easily implement Asynchronous using ’async’ and ‘await’ keywords.
6. A new Thread()is not dealing with Thread pool thread, whereas Task does use thread pool thread.
7. A Task is a higher level concept than Thread.