Whistle

Whistle is a helper C# library to start external executable from within a .NET process and return any output produced by the executable.

Installation

Whistle is available at Nuget and can be installed as a package using VisualStudio NuGet package manager or via the NuGet command line:

Install-Package Whistle

Quick Start

Add an using statement for Narkhedegs.

using Narkhedegs;

Create an instance of Whistle class with desired WhistleOptions and call Blow method to start an external executable. Blow method accepts params string[] arguments which are supplied to the external executable. The Blow method return a Task which can be awaited using await keyword or by accessing .Result property.

var whistleOptions = new WhistleOptions { 
    ExecutableName = "executable.exe"
};

var whistle = new Whistle(whistleOptions);

var response = whistle.Blow("argument1", "argument2", "argument3").Result;

The WhistleResponse contains Standard Output and Standard Error from the external executable.

if(!response.HasError)
{
    Console.WriteLine(response.StandardOutput);
}
else
{
    Console.WriteLine(response.StandardError);
}

Advance Usage

We can change the behaviour of Whistle object by tweaking the properties of WhistleOptions object.

Whistle Options

Tables	Type	Description	Default Value
ExecutableName	string	Gets or sets the executable to start. The ExecutableName could be simply a name like executable.exe or it could be a path, absolute or relative. For example /path/to/your/executable.exe or C:\path\to\your\executable.exe	Required
Arguments	IEnumerable	Gets or sets the set of command-line arguments to use when starting the executable. Arguments specified here will be merged with the arguments accepted by the Blow method of Whistle.	Empty Array
WorkingDirectory	string	Gets or sets the working directory for the executable to be started. If nothing is specified then the default value for WorkingDirectory is the Current Directory.	Current Directory
ExitTimeout	int?	ExitTimeout is time in milliseconds for which Whistle will wait for the external executable to exit. If the external executable exceeds the ExitTimeout then Whistle will terminate the executable and raise TimeoutException. If ExitTimeout is null or is not specified then the default value for ExitTimeout is infinity System.Threading.Timeout.Infinite.	infinity
EnvironmentVariables	Dictionary<string,string>	A string dictionary that provides environment variables that apply to the executable and child processes.	Empty

To Do

• Add support for setting standard output encoding for external executable
• Add support for setting standard error encoding for external executable
• Add support for starting the external executable as a Windows Active Directory user (Integrated Windows Authentication)