C#: Launch Hidden Commandline Process and Retrieve its Output
Sometimes there may be a need to launch a command line operation which calls either an executable or a windows command and make it hidden. Within that operation data will be returned and the main code can process it. Here is a quick example to do that where a call to IPConfig is made. By simply setting the window style to hidden one can execute something without a window flashing at the user.
ProcessStartInfo psInfo = new System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo(@"ipconfig");
psInfo.WindowStyle = System.Diagnostics.ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
psInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
psInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
Process GetIPInfo;
GetIPInfo = Process.Start( psInfo );
// We want to get the output from standard output
System.IO.StreamReader myOutput = GetIPInfo.StandardOutput;
GetIPInfo.WaitForExit( 3000 );
if ( GetIPInfo.HasExited )
Console.WriteLine(myOutput.ReadToEnd());
Note This requires System.Diagnostics namespace to be included.
There are some serious gotchas with Process namespace. If you don’t point ErrorOutput someplace, those errors raise either in your standard output or in your C# code. Probably not what you are going for there at all. When I did a lot of work with this, it seemed random, but I’m not certain if my memory is fuzzy here anymore or not.
Additionally, if you have a large amount of output data, you can create an out of memory exception, as it just adds and adds to the virtual memory of the c# process. You may have to add a reader that continually pulls data off the output stream to reasonably deal with it if there is much volume to your data.