Dataflow on .NET

In .NET core and above, the TransformBlock class is a type of block in the TPL Dataflow (Task Parallel Library Dataflow) library. It represents a block that applies a transformation function to each data element as it passes through the block.

A TransformBlock takes a input of type TInput and produces an output of type TOutput. It has an associated transform function that takes an input value of type TInput and returns an output value of type TOutput.

Here's an example of how you might use a TransformBlock to perform a transformation on a stream of data:

// Create a TransformBlock that applies a transformation function to each input value
var transformBlock = new TransformBlock<int, string>(input => input.ToString());


// Post some data to the TransformBlock
transformBlock.Post(1);
transformBlock.Post(2);
transformBlock.Post(3);

// Asynchronously receive the transformed data from the TransformBlock
string result1 = await transformBlock.ReceiveAsync(); // "1"
string result2 = await transformBlock.ReceiveAsync(); // "2"
string result3 = await transformBlock.ReceiveAsync(); // "3"e        

You can also link multiple TransformBlock instances together to create a pipeline of transformations. This allows you to easily build complex data processing systems using the TPL Dataflow library.

I used in a couple of projects of myself and it's very interesting, have a try!

#dotnet #pipeline #dataflow