I want to write a program that will start another console utility (namely ping.exe) and stream in and analyze it's output. Is there any easy way to do this?
You can intercept console I/O by using the Process and ProcessStartInfo classes, and using the StreamReader from Process.StandardOutput:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Diagnostics;
namespace PingIntercept
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Process proc = new Process();
ProcessStartInfo psi = new ProcessStartInfo("ping.exe", "www.google.com");
psi.CreateNoWindow = true;
psi.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
psi.UseShellExecute = false;
proc.StartInfo = psi;
Console.WriteLine("Pinging www.google.com......");
proc.Start();
string result = proc.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
proc.WaitForExit();
Console.WriteLine(result);
Console.WriteLine("Press <enter> to exit...");
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}
Output:
Pinging www.google.com......
Pinging www.l.google.com [66.102.7.99] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 66.102.7.99: bytes=32 time=43ms TTL=245
Reply from 66.102.7.99: bytes=32 time=42ms TTL=245
Reply from 66.102.7.99: bytes=32 time=43ms TTL=245
Reply from 66.102.7.99: bytes=32 time=42ms TTL=245
Ping statistics for 66.102.7.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 42ms, Maximum = 43ms, Average = 42ms
Press <enter> to exit...
You can also do line-by-line, for instance, by replacing ReadToEnd() with ReadLine() while the process is valid (try a while or do...while loop).
Go figure I'd fail at this. :p
snipped
I've added debugging code to display when tmrUpdate_Tick starts and stops, and both of them print just fine. I'm looking to write a program that has a label to state the highest ping, lowest ping, etc. Anyhow, do you see what's wrong?
I previously had cont = (s == null);[/tt which is the wrong value, and is now replaced with cont = !(s == null);. The output messages that are supposed to show when the function begins and ends don't show at all now with this code:
[edit]I replaced that pile of mess with some sensible code that does the exact same thing, with the exact same result, but looks better. :)[/edit]
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Diagnostics;
namespace PingAnalyzer
{
public partial class Main : Form
{
private Process proc;
public Main()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
proc = new Process();
ProcessStartInfo psi = new ProcessStartInfo("ping.exe", "-t www.google.com");
psi.CreateNoWindow = true;
psi.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
psi.UseShellExecute = false;
proc.StartInfo = psi;
proc.Start();
tmrUpdate.Enabled = true;
}
private void tmrUpdate_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
parse("Start" + Environment.NewLine);
bool cont = true;
while(cont)
{
String s = proc.StandardOutput.ReadLine();
if (s == null)
{
cont = false;
}
else
{
parse(s);
}
}
parse("Finish" + Environment.NewLine);
}
private void parse(String text)
{
richTextBox1.Text += text;
}
}
}
Alright, I fixed it. It's mega-messy now so if anyone cares enough, IM me and I'll zip it or whatever.