Thread.IsBackground Property

A thread is either a background thread or a foreground thread. Background threads are identical to foreground threads, except that background threads do not prevent a process from terminating. Once all foreground threads belonging to a process have terminated, the common language runtime ends the process. Any remaining background threads are stopped and do not complete.

The following code example contrasts the behavior of foreground and background threads. A foreground thread and a background thread are created. The foreground thread keeps the process running until it completes its while loop. After the foreground thread has finished, the process is terminated before the background thread has completed its while loop.

using System;
using System.Threading;

class Test
{
    static void Main()
    {
        BackgroundTest shortTest = new BackgroundTest(10);
        Thread foregroundThread = 
            new Thread(new ThreadStart(shortTest.RunLoop));
        foregroundThread.Name = "ForegroundThread";

        BackgroundTest longTest = new BackgroundTest(50);
        Thread backgroundThread = 
            new Thread(new ThreadStart(longTest.RunLoop));
        backgroundThread.Name = "BackgroundThread";
        backgroundThread.IsBackground = true;

        foregroundThread.Start();
        backgroundThread.Start();
    }
}

class BackgroundTest
{
    int maxIterations;

    public BackgroundTest(int maxIterations)
    {
        this.maxIterations = maxIterations;
    }

    public void RunLoop()
    {
        String threadName = Thread.CurrentThread.Name;

        for(int i = 0; i < maxIterations; i++)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("{0} count: {1}", 
                threadName, i.ToString());
            Thread.Sleep(250);
        }
        Console.WriteLine("{0} finished counting.", threadName);
    }
}

.NET Framework

.NET Framework Client Profile

Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows 7, Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 (Server Core Role not supported), Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core Role supported with SP1 or later; Itanium not supported)

The .NET Framework does not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.

Reference

Other Resources