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

Julian's solution is tested working with some minor corrections. The following is an example that also used https://sourceforge.net/projects/bat-to-exe/ GenericConsole.cs and https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/19225/Bat-file-compiler program.txt for args part:

using System;
using System.Text;  //StringBuilder
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.IO;


class Program
{
    private static bool redirectStandardOutput = true;

    private static string buildargument(string[] args)
    {
        StringBuilder arg = new StringBuilder();
        for (int i = 0; i < args.Length; i++)
        {
            arg.Append("\"" + args[i] + "\" ");
        }

        return arg.ToString();
    }

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Process prc = new Process();
        prc.StartInfo = //new ProcessStartInfo("cmd.exe", String.Format("/c \"\"{0}\" {1}", Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, "mapTargetIDToTargetNameA3.bat"), buildargument(args)));
        //new ProcessStartInfo(Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, "mapTargetIDToTargetNameA3.bat"), buildargument(args));
        new ProcessStartInfo("mapTargetIDToTargetNameA3.bat");
        prc.StartInfo.Arguments = buildargument(args);

        prc.EnableRaisingEvents = true;

        if (redirectStandardOutput == true)
        {
            prc.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
        }
        else
        {
            prc.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = true;
        }

        prc.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;

        prc.OutputDataReceived += OnOutputDataRecived;
        prc.ErrorDataReceived += OnErrorDataReceived;
        //prc.Exited += OnExited;

        prc.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = redirectStandardOutput;
        prc.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = redirectStandardOutput;

        try
        {
            prc.Start();
            prc.BeginOutputReadLine();
            prc.BeginErrorReadLine();
            prc.WaitForExit();
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("OS error: " + e.Message);
        }

        prc.Close();
    }

    // Handle the dataevent
    private static void OnOutputDataRecived(object sender, DataReceivedEventArgs e)
    {
        //do something with your data
        Console.WriteLine(e.Data);
    }

    //Handle the error
    private static void OnErrorDataReceived(object sender, DataReceivedEventArgs e)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(e.Data);
    }

    // Handle Exited event and display process information.
    //private static void OnExited(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
    //{
    //    var process = sender as Process;
    //    if (process != null)
    //    {
    //        Console.WriteLine("ExitCode: " + process.ExitCode);
    //    }
    //    else
    //    {
    //        Console.WriteLine("Process exited");
    //    }
    //}
}

The code need to compile inside VS2007, using commandline csc.exe generated executable will not show console output correctly, or even crash with CLR20r3 error. Comment out the OnExited event process, the console output of the bat to exe will be more like the original bat console output.