gh-94972: document that shield users need to keep a reference to their task (GH-96724)

Co-authored-by: Thomas Grainger <tagrain@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Guido van Rossum <gvanrossum@gmail.com>
(cherry picked from commit 6281affee6423296893b509cd78dc563ca58b196)

Co-authored-by: Hendrik Makait <hendrik.makait@gmail.com>

2 files changed, 14 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/Doc/library/asyncio-future.rst b/Doc/library/asyncio-future.rst
index 7426e82..412304a 100644
--- a/Doc/library/asyncio-future.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/asyncio-future.rst
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ Future Functions
       preferred way for creating new Tasks.
 
       Save a reference to the result of this function, to avoid
-      a task disappearing mid execution.
+      a task disappearing mid-execution.
 
    .. versionchanged:: 3.5.1
       The function accepts any :term:`awaitable` object.
diff --git a/Doc/library/asyncio-task.rst b/Doc/library/asyncio-task.rst
index e535a5b..8f9cef7 100644
--- a/Doc/library/asyncio-task.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/asyncio-task.rst
@@ -262,9 +262,9 @@ Creating Tasks
    .. important::
 
       Save a reference to the result of this function, to avoid
-      a task disappearing mid execution. The event loop only keeps
+      a task disappearing mid-execution. The event loop only keeps
       weak references to tasks. A task that isn't referenced elsewhere
-      may get garbage-collected at any time, even before it's done.
+      may get garbage collected at any time, even before it's done.
       For reliable "fire-and-forget" background tasks, gather them in
       a collection::
 
@@ -441,7 +441,8 @@ Shielding From Cancellation
 
    The statement::
 
-       res = await shield(something())
+       task = asyncio.create_task(something())
+       res = await shield(task)
 
    is equivalent to::
 
@@ -460,11 +461,19 @@ Shielding From Cancellation
    the ``shield()`` function should be combined with a try/except
    clause, as follows::
 
+       task = asyncio.create_task(something())
        try:
-           res = await shield(something())
+           res = await shield(task)
        except CancelledError:
            res = None
 
+   .. important::
+
+      Save a reference to tasks passed to this function, to avoid
+      a task disappearing mid-execution. The event loop only keeps
+      weak references to tasks. A task that isn't referenced elsewhere
+      may get garbage collected at any time, even before it's done.
+
    .. versionchanged:: 3.10
       Removed the *loop* parameter.