Create a combo command line / Windows service app

Question

What\'s the best way in C# to set up a utility app that can be run from the command line and produce some output (or write to a file), but that could be run as a Windows service

Answer 1

Yes it can be done.

Your startup class must extend ServiceBase.

You could use your static void Main(string[] args) startup method to parse a command line switch to run in console mode.

Something like:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
   if ( args == "blah") 
   {
      MyService();
   } 
   else 
   {
      System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase[] ServicesToRun;
      ServicesToRun = new System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase[] { new MyService() };
      System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase.Run(ServicesToRun);
   }