Workflow Foundation - Terminate vs Abort vs Cancel

Question

I'm using WorkflowFoundation 4.0 in WinForms application. When the user closes the form, the program doesn't exit because the workflow is running in background.

The workflow is created like this:

WorkflowApplication workflow = new WorkflowApplication(new myActivity());
workflow.Run();

I'd like to 'close' it in my FormClosing event. Which method should I use? Terminate, Abort or Cancel?

What do you mean by 'close' it. what exactly you want to do with the workflow. — Ghyath Serhal, Jan 06 '11 at 11:53
I'd like to abort it's thread so the form is disposed fully, and not to have leftover threads running... — veljkoz, Jan 06 '11 at 11:58
what i understand is that when you close the form you want to abort the workflow and do not continue it again any more, am i right? — Ghyath Serhal, Jan 06 '11 at 12:20

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 06 '11 at 14:17

7

Depending on your needs/workflow either Terminate or Cancel. Abort is designed to leave the persisted state around, if you are using the instance store, and restart the workflow from the last saved state.

Use terminate if you want no more activities, including cleanup like Finally blocks, to execute. Use Cancel if you want to have the capability to have the workflow cleanup after itself. I would suggest Cancel in most cases.

answered Jan 06 '11 at 14:17

Maurice

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Is this documented anywhere? – Matt Ruwe Aug 10 '16 at 18:36

score 5 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:28

5

There is a thorough answer here:

Windows workflow 4 : difference between WorkflowApplication Cancel, Terminate and Abort

edited May 23 '17 at 10:28

Community

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answered Jan 10 '11 at 05:26

Louis Rhys

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Workflow Foundation - Terminate vs Abort vs Cancel

2 Answers2