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

 System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo psi =
   new System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo(@"program_to_call.exe");
 psi.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
 psi.WindowStyle = System.Diagnostics.ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
 psi.UseShellExecute = false;
 System.Diagnostics.Process proc = System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(psi); ////
 System.IO.StreamReader myOutput = proc.StandardOutput;
 proc.WaitForExit(2000);
 if (proc.HasExited)
  {
      string output = myOutput.ReadToEnd();
 }

Answer 2

// 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 = "YOURBATCHFILE.bat";
 p.Start();
 // Do not wait for the child process to exit before
 // reading to the end of its redirected stream.
 // p.WaitForExit();
 // Read the output stream first and then wait.
 string output = p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
 p.WaitForExit();

Code is from MSDN.

Answer 3

There one other parameter I found useful, which I use to eliminate the process window

pProcess.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;

this helps to hide the black console window from user completely, if that is what you desire.

Answer 4

There is a ProcessHelper Class in PublicDomain open source code which might interest you.

Answer 5

// usage
const string ToolFileName = "example.exe";
string output = RunExternalExe(ToolFileName);

public string RunExternalExe(string filename, string arguments = null)
{
    var process = new Process();

    process.StartInfo.FileName = filename;
    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(arguments))
    {
        process.StartInfo.Arguments = arguments;
    }

    process.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
    process.StartInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
    process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;

    process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
    process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
    var stdOutput = new StringBuilder();
    process.OutputDataReceived += (sender, args) => stdOutput.AppendLine(args.Data); // Use AppendLine rather than Append since args.Data is one line of output, not including the newline character.

    string stdError = null;
    try
    {
        process.Start();
        process.BeginOutputReadLine();
        stdError = process.StandardError.ReadToEnd();
        process.WaitForExit();
    }
    catch (Exception e)
    {
        throw new Exception("OS error while executing " + Format(filename, arguments)+ ": " + e.Message, e);
    }

    if (process.ExitCode == 0)
    {
        return stdOutput.ToString();
    }
    else
    {
        var message = new StringBuilder();

        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(stdError))
        {
            message.AppendLine(stdError);
        }

        if (stdOutput.Length != 0)
        {
            message.AppendLine("Std output:");
            message.AppendLine(stdOutput.ToString());
        }

        throw new Exception(Format(filename, arguments) + " finished with exit code = " + process.ExitCode + ": " + message);
    }
}

private string Format(string filename, string arguments)
{
    return "'" + filename + 
        ((string.IsNullOrEmpty(arguments)) ? string.Empty : " " + arguments) +
        "'";
}

Answer 6

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: