CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#
quillbreaker
quillbreaker

Reputation: 6225

c# console application sub windows

I'd like for a single console application to spawn other console windows and output to different ones at different times inside of a C# console application. Preferably within one console application, I spawn some other consoles, write to them, and close them during the finally block of the original console application.

What's the ideal way to do this in C#?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1219

Answers (3)

ShuggyCoUk
ShuggyCoUk

Reputation: 36438

A single process can only ever have one true Standard In, Error and Out.

You can fake different ones, especially in .Net because after all they are presented as managed streams which would be fine at the push/pull and of the pipe. The problem is the output/input end i.e. the bit you might be piping to a file, or where you are requesting user input. These simply won't play ball since the OS supplies no multiplexing method itself.

Using simple means at best you could do something that sent output to multiple different windows which looked much like a console window.

With much complexity you would handle reading from them too. In essence you are writing a window which pretends to be a console, and getting it reasonably close to all the little intricacies of console windows is (increasingly) hard.

It would be simple to have (say) a fake console per thread by creating a class like so. I only bother with Out, In and Err follow easily from this.

public class MultiplexByThreadConsole : IDisposable
{
    private readonly TextWriter originalOut;
    private readonly TextWriter myOut = new IndividualMultiplex();

    public MultiplexByThreadConsole()
    {
        this.originalOut = Console.Out;
        Console.SetOut(this.myOut);
    } 

    public void Dispose()
    {
        Console.SetOut(this.originalOut);            
    }

    private class IndividualMultiplex : TextWriter
    {
        [ThreadStatic]
        private readonly TextWriter actual;

        // override all the required functions and any 
        // others you want to wrap 
        public override void Write(char c)
        {
             if (actual == null)
             {
                 actual = MakeWhateverYouReallyWantToOutputTo();
             }
             actual.Write(c);
        }
    }
}

Then somewhere in Main (or wherever) do:

using(new MultiplexByThreadConsole())
{ 
    // off you go all threads during this get their own faked console.
}

You would likely keep the In/Out/Err all pointing to some common objects writers/reader which was itself the fake console.

This is however pretty nasty. I would say that, if you truly want to launch things that look like separate consoles then you should actually do that and launch a new process for each one with a glue back end to manage them (somewhat similar to the concept of Chrome's back end processes per tab).

Upvotes: 1

Allen Rice
Allen Rice

Reputation: 19446

You can do this with Auto/Manual EventWaitHandles in C# combined with countless other techniques. However, you should probably step back and see what you are trying to accomplish and see if a winform app would be a better fit. Maybe post more details and ask for ideas.

Upvotes: 1

Jon Skeet
Jon Skeet

Reputation: 1500515

I don't believe you can do this with a regular console application. The closest you could come would be to create a your own form in WinForms/WPF which behaved in roughly the same was as a normal console window.

I suppose you could spawn extra processes which each had their own console, and write to them via network connections or named pipes etc... it would be pretty ugly though.

Upvotes: 6

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