how to continuously run a c# console application in background

Question

I would like to know how to run a c# program in background every five minute increments. The code below is not what I would like to run as a background process but would lik

Answer 1

This app should run continuously, putting out a message every 5 minutes.
Isn't that what you want?

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        while (true) {
            Console.Write("hellow world");
            System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000 * 60 * 5); // Sleep for 5 minutes
        }

    }
}

Answer 2

Probably the simplest way to "fire" a new process every X minutes is to use Windows Task Scheduler.

You could of course do something similar programmatically, e.g. create your own service, that starts the console application every X minutes.

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All this under assumption you actually want to close the application before the next iteration. Alternatively, you might just keep it active the whole time. You might use one of the timer classes to fire events periodically, or even a Thread.Sleep in a very simplified scenario....

Answer 3

Why not just use Windows Task Scheduler?

Set it to run your app at the desired interval. It's perfect for this sort of job and you don't have to mess about with forcing threads to sleep which can create more problems that it solves.

Answer 4

How about using a System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherTimer?

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        DispatcherTimer timer = new DispatcherTimer();
        timer.Interval = new TimeSpan(0, 5, 0); // sets it to 5 minutes
        timer.Tick += new EventHandler(timer_Tick);
        timer.Start();
    }

    static void timer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        // whatever you want to happen every 5 minutes
    }

}