Sample cancellation of ThreadAbortException with Thread.ResetAbort

CodeBlockWithTimeout.cs

        internal class CodeBlockWithTimeout<TResult>
        {
            private readonly Func<TResult> _block;

            private readonly string _name;

            private CodeBlockWithTimeout(Func<TResult> block, string name)
            {
                this._block = block;
                _name = name;
            }

            internal static CodeBlockWithTimeout<TResult> Create(Action block, string name = "anonymous")
            {
                return Create(() =>
                {
                    block();
                    return default(TResult);
                }, name);
            }

            internal static CodeBlockWithTimeout<TResult> Create(Func<TResult> block, string name = "anonymous")
            {
                return new CodeBlockWithTimeout<TResult>(block, name);
            }

            internal TResult TryInvoke(TimeSpan timeout)
            {
                TResult result = default (TResult);

                var runner = new Thread(
                    () =>
                    {
                        try
                        {
                            result = this._block.Invoke();
                        }
                        catch (ThreadAbortException)
                        {
                            Tracer.LogWarning("CodeBlockWithTimeout '{0}': ResetAbort()", _name);
                            Thread.ResetAbort();
                        }
                    }) { IsBackground = true };
                
                runner.Start();

                // wait for thread to terminate naturally, or until timeout hit
                if (!runner.Join(timeout))
                {
                    Tracer.LogError("CodeBlockWithTimeout '{0}': Timeout expired - trying to abort thread. ", _name);

                    // timed out, signal to abort the thread
                    runner.Abort();

                    throw new TimeoutException(
                        String.Format("Code block '{0}' timed out.", _name));
                }
                return result;
            }
        }

I wrote this for a previous project to enable timeout functionality for complex Regexes using NET35. Regex Timeouts were only added to the BCL in 4.5. An example use would be:

            string parsed =
                CodeBlockWithTimeout<string>.Create(() => StripVMLFromHTML(raw, options), "Stripping VML")
                    .TryInvoke(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));

Make sense?