Advanced Lifetime Management

The Lifetimes.CreateIntersection2 method creates a LifetimeDefinition that is the intersection of a number of other Lifetimes passed in to the method. This means it will terminate when any one of the original Lifetime instances terminate. Of course, a Lifetime can only be terminated once, so nothing will happen when subsequent Lifetime instances terminate. The newly created intersection LifetimeDefinition can also be terminated independently, and when it is terminated, it doesn't affect any of the original Lifetime instances.

This is useful as a companion to Lifetimes.Define, which creates a LifetimeDefinition tied to a "parent" Lifetime. When the parent terminates, the child terminates, or the child can be terminated independently. CreateIntersection2 creates a new LifetimeDefinition tied to a collection of "parent" Lifetime instances. When any of them terminate, the child terminates, or the child can be terminated independently.

note

The CreateIntersection2 method will eventually replace the CreateIntersection method, which is currently marked as obsolete.

CreateIntersection has the same implementation as CreateIntersection2, but returns a Lifetime, while CreateIntersection2 returns a LifetimeDefinition, which gives more control over the resulting Lifetime.

Lifetimes.Synchronize takes a collection of LifetimeDefinition and terminates them all when any one of them terminates.

The SequentialLifetimes class simplifies using consecutive, non-overlapping Lifetime instances, ensuring one is terminated before the next is created.

It maintains a private LifetimeDefinition, nested under a parent Lifetime provided in the constructor. When you call Next or DefineNext, the current LifetimeDefinition (if any) is terminated, a new one is created and stored, and the action you passed in is called, with the new Lifetime. (The action passed to DefineNext also takes the LifetimeDefinition). You can also terminate the current LifetimeDefinition explicitly by calling TerminateCurrent.

This removes the need for boilerplate management of a single LifetimeDefinition that needs to be created and terminated multiple times.