CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.net
SiberianGuy
SiberianGuy

Reputation: 25302

Making a console application behave like a Windows application

I have a console application, and I want it to wait till some event is raised. But it executes the code and exits:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var someObjectInstance = new SomeObject();
    someObjectInstance.SomeEvent += SomeEventHandler;
}

static void SomeEventHandler()
{
    //Some logic
}

I want to make my application behave like a Windows application where 

Application.Run(new Form1());

is called and the message loop is run.

But I don't need neither a message loop nor any form. So it looks like overhead. Is there a more light-weight way to achieve my goal?

Upvotes: 13

Views: 12068

Answers (3)

WillfulWizard
WillfulWizard

Reputation: 5409

EDIT: Sadly, I was incorrect and this won't work, because Application is not defined for a console application (Thank you, Reed Copsey).

This should do the trick, although depending on the sleeptime you choose you could end up hogging the CPU. I feel like there must be a safer way to do this?

while (true)
{
    Application.DoEvents();
    Thread.Sleep(this.SleepTime);
}

Upvotes: -1

Greg Bogumil
Greg Bogumil

Reputation: 1923

Add

Console.ReadLine(); after you attach your eventhandler.

For example..

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        System.IO.FileSystemWatcher watcher = new System.IO.FileSystemWatcher(@"c:\", "*.txt");
        watcher.Created += new System.IO.FileSystemEventHandler(watcher_Created);
        watcher.EnableRaisingEvents = true;
        Console.ReadLine();
    }

    static void watcher_Created(object sender, System.IO.FileSystemEventArgs e)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0} was created at {1:hh:mm:ss}", e.FullPath, DateTime.Now));
    }
}

Upvotes: 3

Reed Copsey
Reed Copsey

Reputation: 564413

First off, unless SomeObject is going to raise the event on a separate thread, this won't work without some form of processing in SomeObject. If it's designed that way, however, this is fairly straightforward.

A very efficient way of handling this is to just wait on a WaitHandle:

private static ManualResetEvent waitHandle = new ManualResetEvent(false);
static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var someObjectInstance = new SomeObject();
    someObjectInstance.SomeEvent += SomeEventHandler;
    waitHandle.WaitOne(); // Will block until event occurs
}

static void SomeEventHandler()
{
    //some logic
    waitHandle.Set(); // Will allow Main() to continue, exiting the program
}

Upvotes: 24

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