Console app won't exit when given ctrl + c in debug mode

Question

When I run the below in Release, pressing CTRL + C successfully terminates the application.

When running in Debug, pressing CTRL + C hangs in the while loop below.

Why? Is there a way around this?

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    while (true)
    {
        // Press CTRL + C...
        // When running in Release, the app closes down
        // When running in Debug, it hangs in here
    }
}

Answer 1

One way is to achieve this is to use Console.CancelKeyPress

Occurs when the Control modifier key (Ctrl) and either the ConsoleKey.C console key (C) or the Break key are pressed simultaneously (Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Break).

When the user presses either Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Break, the CancelKeyPress event is fired and the application's ConsoleCancelEventHandler event handler is executed. The event handler is passed a ConsoleCancelEventArgs object

---

Example

private static bool keepRunning = true;

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
   Console.CancelKeyPress += delegate(object sender, ConsoleCancelEventArgs e) {
         e.Cancel = true;
         keepRunning = false;
      };

   while (keepRunning) 
   {
      // Do stuff
   }
   Console.WriteLine("exited gracefully");
}