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

Just for fun, here's my completed solution for getting PYTHON output - under a button click - with error reporting. Just add a button called "butPython" and a label called "llHello"...

    private void butPython(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        llHello.Text = "Calling Python...";
        this.Refresh();
        Tuple python = GoPython(@"C:\Users\BLAH\Desktop\Code\Python\BLAH.py");
        llHello.Text = python.Item1; // Show result.
        if (python.Item2.Length > 0) MessageBox.Show("Sorry, there was an error:" + Environment.NewLine + python.Item2);
    }

    public Tuple GoPython(string pythonFile, string moreArgs = "")
    {
        ProcessStartInfo PSI = new ProcessStartInfo();
        PSI.FileName = "py.exe";
        PSI.Arguments = string.Format("\"{0}\" {1}", pythonFile, moreArgs);
        PSI.CreateNoWindow = true;
        PSI.UseShellExecute = false;
        PSI.RedirectStandardError = true;
        PSI.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
        using (Process process = Process.Start(PSI))
            using (StreamReader reader = process.StandardOutput)
            {
                string stderr = process.StandardError.ReadToEnd(); // Error(s)!!
                string result = reader.ReadToEnd(); // What we want.
                return new Tuple (result,stderr); 
            }
    }