Building a Background Task Scheduler in ASP.NET Core: Step-by-Step Guide

Introduction:

In many web applications, there arises a need to perform certain tasks in the background at regular intervals, such as sending emails, updating caches, or fetching data from external sources. ASP.NET Core provides a easy way to achieve this through hosted services. In this blog, will walk through the process of creating a simple background task scheduler using ASP.NET Core's hosted services feature.

Step 1: Creating a New ASP.NET Core Web Application

Launch Visual Studio. Click on "Create a new project". In the "Create a new project" window, select "ASP.NET Core Web Application" and click Next. Project Name: Enter SampleBackgroundService. Location: Choose a location to save your project. Click Next.

Step 2: Creating the Background Service

Create a new class named MyBackgroundService.cs in your project and implement the background task logic. This class should inherit from BackgroundService and override the ExecuteAsync method.

namespace SampleBackgroundService.BackgroundTaskExample
{
    public class MyBackgroundService : BackgroundService
    {
        private readonly ILogger<MyBackgroundService> _logger;

        public MyBackgroundService(ILogger<MyBackgroundService> logger)
        {
            _logger = logger;
        }

        protected override async Task ExecuteAsync(CancellationToken stoppingToken)
        {
            while (!stoppingToken.IsCancellationRequested)
            {
                _logger.LogInformation("Background task is running at: {time}", DateTimeOffset.Now);
                await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10), stoppingToken); // Change the delay as needed
            }
        }
    }
}

Step 3: Configuring the Background Service

In the Program.cs file, add the background service to the service container by calling AddHostedService<MyBackgroundService>() in the ConfigureServices method.

builder.Services.AddHostedService<MyBackgroundService>();

Step 5: Running the Application

Finally, run your ASP.NET Core application. You should see the log messages from the background task appearing in the console at regular intervals.

Conclusion:

In this tutorial, you've learned how to create a simple background task scheduler in ASP.NET Core using hosted services. This approach provides a easy and efficient way to run background tasks in web applications, ensuring that critical processes can be executed asynchronously without affecting the responsiveness of the application. With the knowledge gained from this guide, you can extend the functionality of your ASP.NET Core applications by incorporating various background tasks tailored to your specific requirements.

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