How to send commands to a running application from the command line?
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Hi, I want to be able to send commands to a running application from the command line. Is there a simple way to do this? Thanks in advance for any help. Ted
- Life would be so much easier if I had the source code! - If C# had true garbage collection, most applications would delete themselves upon execution ;)
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Hi, I want to be able to send commands to a running application from the command line. Is there a simple way to do this? Thanks in advance for any help. Ted
- Life would be so much easier if I had the source code! - If C# had true garbage collection, most applications would delete themselves upon execution ;)
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Hi, I want to be able to send commands to a running application from the command line. Is there a simple way to do this? Thanks in advance for any help. Ted
- Life would be so much easier if I had the source code! - If C# had true garbage collection, most applications would delete themselves upon execution ;)
There is no simple way to do this. You would have to write a command line application that communicated to the running application, either via Remoting or via a common text file or database. I would recommend Remoting[^] as it will be more flexible and less processor / disk intensive.
You should never use standby on an elephant. It always crashes when you lift the ears. - Mark Wallace C/C++ (I dont see a huge difference between them, and the 'benefits' of C++ are questionable, who needs inheritance when you have copy and paste) - fat_boy
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Is the application already running on the commandline, or are you starting a console-application? If you're starting the proces yourself (using
Process) then you could redirect the Standard Input[^] device.I are Troll :suss:
Perhaps it needed a little bit more explanation. In Delphi, I wrote a program for clients that listened to UDP. On the server I sometimes started a broadcaster (from the command line) to send a message to the clients (after sending the message the broacast app shuts down again). Now in C# I'm gonna rebuild this program. The client will be the same, but on the server the application will keep running because of added functionality. So, the app is a GUI app (dont know if it will be winforms or wpf yet) which will be running constantly. I just want to send some kind of command from the command line to the server and have the server app handle the messaging to the clients. Ofcourse, I could also split the server app in 2 programs (the original broadcaster) and another app to do the extra stuff. But the server app will also log the messages sent, so thats why i wanted to build one tool for the server which does all the work.. Better explained this way? or even more vague? :D Ted
- Life would be so much easier if I had the source code! - If C# had true garbage collection, most applications would delete themselves upon execution ;)
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There is no simple way to do this. You would have to write a command line application that communicated to the running application, either via Remoting or via a common text file or database. I would recommend Remoting[^] as it will be more flexible and less processor / disk intensive.
You should never use standby on an elephant. It always crashes when you lift the ears. - Mark Wallace C/C++ (I dont see a huge difference between them, and the 'benefits' of C++ are questionable, who needs inheritance when you have copy and paste) - fat_boy
the command sent from commandline is part of a batchfile running. perhaps I should split the tool like i said in the reply to Eddy on the other thread.
- Life would be so much easier if I had the source code! - If C# had true garbage collection, most applications would delete themselves upon execution ;)
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Perhaps it needed a little bit more explanation. In Delphi, I wrote a program for clients that listened to UDP. On the server I sometimes started a broadcaster (from the command line) to send a message to the clients (after sending the message the broacast app shuts down again). Now in C# I'm gonna rebuild this program. The client will be the same, but on the server the application will keep running because of added functionality. So, the app is a GUI app (dont know if it will be winforms or wpf yet) which will be running constantly. I just want to send some kind of command from the command line to the server and have the server app handle the messaging to the clients. Ofcourse, I could also split the server app in 2 programs (the original broadcaster) and another app to do the extra stuff. But the server app will also log the messages sent, so thats why i wanted to build one tool for the server which does all the work.. Better explained this way? or even more vague? :D Ted
- Life would be so much easier if I had the source code! - If C# had true garbage collection, most applications would delete themselves upon execution ;)
What you say is really difficult to achieve. Probably you should consider the approach of DataBase Servers like MySql. There is a service running and you can still run commands on those servers from command line. But in this case, there is a new instance of program that sends the data through port to the running service. Hence, what you can do : 1. Instead of accepting the input from commandline, accept it through port. You already have a port handler in your server. 2. Create a CommandLine application to accept data from keyboard, send it through port to the service. Now the user can simply type the command in the commandline, it gets routed through the port and goes to the server. Added benefit is that this can be userful for remote monitoring as well.
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Perhaps it needed a little bit more explanation. In Delphi, I wrote a program for clients that listened to UDP. On the server I sometimes started a broadcaster (from the command line) to send a message to the clients (after sending the message the broacast app shuts down again). Now in C# I'm gonna rebuild this program. The client will be the same, but on the server the application will keep running because of added functionality. So, the app is a GUI app (dont know if it will be winforms or wpf yet) which will be running constantly. I just want to send some kind of command from the command line to the server and have the server app handle the messaging to the clients. Ofcourse, I could also split the server app in 2 programs (the original broadcaster) and another app to do the extra stuff. But the server app will also log the messages sent, so thats why i wanted to build one tool for the server which does all the work.. Better explained this way? or even more vague? :D Ted
- Life would be so much easier if I had the source code! - If C# had true garbage collection, most applications would delete themselves upon execution ;)
Ted On The Net wrote:
Better explained this way? or even more vague?
Bit of both; I fail to see from where you want to send commands to the command-line application. You mentioned that the broadcaster (the server) is a console-app. Am I right in understanding that the broadcaster tells the client "what" to start, or is it the broadcaster itself that needs to be steered?
I are Troll :suss:
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Ted On The Net wrote:
Better explained this way? or even more vague?
Bit of both; I fail to see from where you want to send commands to the command-line application. You mentioned that the broadcaster (the server) is a console-app. Am I right in understanding that the broadcaster tells the client "what" to start, or is it the broadcaster itself that needs to be steered?
I are Troll :suss:
ok, I need to be more clear :D Our release build process (compile, build, create iso, etc) is run multiple times a day with the use of 4NT batch files on a server. During the process, notifications about the progress are sent to all developers informing them about new compiler errors, files being locked etc. This way the people who need to fix something know they have to and the build process can be fired up again ASAP. They receive these messages in a small receiver app using UDP. The messages are sent with a broadcaster app using command line parameters. In the batch files we just execute the broadcast tool with some parameters, it sends the message and shuts down again. (like: broadcast / broadcast error file not found: aFile.exe). The broadcaster and receiver tools are all built in Delphi. I want to rebuild it using C# as my first project (i'm currently making the transition from Delphi to C# guru (inhouse) :P) Do you get the idea now? :-) (hope so!)
- Life would be so much easier if I had the source code! - If C# had true garbage collection, most applications would delete themselves upon execution ;)
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ok, I need to be more clear :D Our release build process (compile, build, create iso, etc) is run multiple times a day with the use of 4NT batch files on a server. During the process, notifications about the progress are sent to all developers informing them about new compiler errors, files being locked etc. This way the people who need to fix something know they have to and the build process can be fired up again ASAP. They receive these messages in a small receiver app using UDP. The messages are sent with a broadcaster app using command line parameters. In the batch files we just execute the broadcast tool with some parameters, it sends the message and shuts down again. (like: broadcast / broadcast error file not found: aFile.exe). The broadcaster and receiver tools are all built in Delphi. I want to rebuild it using C# as my first project (i'm currently making the transition from Delphi to C# guru (inhouse) :P) Do you get the idea now? :-) (hope so!)
- Life would be so much easier if I had the source code! - If C# had true garbage collection, most applications would delete themselves upon execution ;)
Ted On The Net wrote:
(like: broadcast / broadcast error file not found: aFile.exe). The broadcaster and receiver tools are all built in Delphi. I want to rebuild it using C# as my first project
Two applications to migrate, starting with the broadcaster. As soon as you create a new console-application you'll see where to get the command-line arguments from. Are all options specified as arguments, or will you be reading user-input directly from the console? Coming from Delphi, I guessed that it's now based on the Indy-components? You might be interested in the example on the
UdpClient[^] class.I are Troll :suss:
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Hi, I want to be able to send commands to a running application from the command line. Is there a simple way to do this? Thanks in advance for any help. Ted
- Life would be so much easier if I had the source code! - If C# had true garbage collection, most applications would delete themselves upon execution ;)
The program would have to have that capability built in. One simple way would be having the application check a database for actions to take. Then you just deposit your instructions there. Another way is to use a Windows Service and send custom actions to it.
