TPL Dataflow

Announcements

• Installing TPL Dataflow

  Stephen Toub - MSFTMicrosoft EmployeeWednesday, January 26, 2011 4:11 PM

  The TPL Dataflow installer, available for download here, is a simple MSI which places a few files in a folder in your Program Files directory, e.g. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Corporation\TPL Dataflow\". 

  Four files are placed in that folder during the install:

  • The .NET DLL: System.Threading.Tasks.Dataflow.dll
  • API documentation: System.Threading.Tasks.Dataflow.chm
  • An XML comments file for IntelliSense: System.Threading.Tasks.Dataflow.xml
  • An End-user License Agreement: EULA.rtf

  In addition, a copy of the System.Threading.Tasks.Dataflow.dll is added to the Global Assembly Cache (GAC).

  Uninstalling the MSI will remove all of these files from your system.

• Welcome to the TPL Dataflow forum!

  Stephen Toub - MSFTMicrosoft EmployeeWednesday, January 26, 2011 3:39 PM

  "TPL Dataflow" is a new .NET library for building concurrent, parallel, and asynchronous applications.  It enables building systems based on dataflow concepts, on in-process message passing, and on asynchronous pipelines.  This library, System.Threading.Tasks.Dataflow.dll, is heavily inspired by the Visual C++ Asynchronous Agents Library, by the CCR from Microsoft Robotics, by the Axum language, and more; it’s built on top of a multitude of constructs introduced in .NET 4, internally using types like Task and ConcurrentQueue<T>, in order to provide solutions for buffering and processing data, for building systems that need high-throughput and low-latency processing of data, and for building agent/actor-based systems.  TPL Dataflow was also designed to integrate very well with the new language support for tasks, such that you can easily use TPL Dataflow constructs within asynchronous methods, and such that you can harness asynchronous methods within “dataflow blocks.”

  You can download a Community Technology Preview release from the TC Labs site on MSDN DevLabs at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/gg585582.  A previous preview release of the DLL is also available as part of the Microsoft Visual Studio Async CTP, available at http://msdn.com/vstudio/async.

  Please use this forum to ask questions about TPL Dataflow, to provide feedback on the library, to let us know about your successes and to let us know about your stumbling blocks.  We look forward to hearing from and conversing with you.