How To: Execute command line in C#, get STD OUT results

Question

How do I execute a command-line program from C# and get back the STD OUT results? Specifically, I want to execute DIFF on two files that are programmatically selected and wr

Answer 1

In case you also need to execute some command in the cmd.exe, you can do the following:

// Start the child process.
Process p = new Process();
// Redirect the output stream of the child process.
p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
p.StartInfo.FileName = "cmd.exe";
p.StartInfo.Arguments = "/C vol";
p.Start();
// Read the output stream first and then wait.
string output = p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
p.WaitForExit();
Console.WriteLine(output);

This returns just the output of the command itself:

You can also use StandardInput instead of StartInfo.Arguments:

// Start the child process.
Process p = new Process();
// Redirect the output stream of the child process.
p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
p.StartInfo.FileName = "cmd.exe";
p.Start();
// Read the output stream first and then wait.
p.StandardInput.WriteLine("vol");
p.StandardInput.WriteLine("exit");
string output = p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
p.WaitForExit();
Console.WriteLine(output);

The result looks like this: