Using context for timeouts

A timeout is simply an automated cancellation. The context will cancel after a timer expires. This is useful in limiting resource consumption for computations that are not likely to finish.

How to do it...

These are the steps to create a context with timeout and to detect when a timeout event happens:

1. Use context.WithTimeout to create a new cancelable context that will auto-cancel after a given duration based on an existing context and a cancellation function:

   ctx:=context.Background()
   timeoutable, cancel:=context.WithTimeout(ctx,5*time.Second)
   defer cancel()

   Alternatively, you can use WithDeadline to cancel the context at a given moment.

   Make sure the cancel function is eventually called.

2. Pass the timeout context to computations or goroutines that can time out:

   go longRunningGoroutine1(timeoutable)
   go longRunningGoroutine2(timeoutable)

3. In the goroutine, check whether the context is canceled using the ctx.Done() channel or ctx.Err():

   func longRunningGoroutine...