Running an application on command prompt programmatically

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I was trying to make a program that runs an application (PGP) on the command prompt automatically. I have tried running the command manually on the command prompt and everything went smoothly. However, when I tried it on code, though there were no errors, the results were not the same compared to when I manually typed the command on the command prompt. The commands though were the same. Below is my code:

C#

Process process = new Process();
ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
startInfo.FileName = "cmd.exe";
startInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Normal;
startInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
cmdText = @"/C pgp +batchmode C:\input.pgp\ -o C:\output.txt\";
startInfo.Arguments = cmdText;
process.StartInfo = startInfo;
process.Start();

The command that is working when I type on the command prompt is the following:

pgp +batchmode C:\input.pgp\ -o C:\output.txt\

Did you had any experience similar with this before? Are there additional switches for cmd.exe I need to add on the Arguments property to make it work like when I was typing it on the command prompt?

Posted 28-May-13 22:33pm

walterhevedeich

Updated 29-May-13 0:09am

v3

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Richard MacCutchan 29-May-13 4:35am

What was the difference between the two executions?

walterhevedeich 29-May-13 4:47am

It was supposed to remove the prompt for a passphrase. It worked fine when the command was typed manually and it did what it was supposed to do. On the code, the prompt was also removed, but there was no output file generated. No errors on the console though.

Richard MacCutchan 29-May-13 5:19am

What was the actual filename you tried to create? The text of your command parameters above does not look right to me.

walterhevedeich 29-May-13 6:05am

The [input file] [output file] were actually changed for the sake of this post but these are just paths and filenames. Basically, PGP is supposed to decrypt the input file to the output file given. I'll update my question.

Richard MacCutchan 29-May-13 6:13am

You have not provided the full path for pgp; are you sure that cmd can find it?

walterhevedeich 29-May-13 6:24am

PGP is installed on the server and I am able to run it on any directory on the command prompt. Anyway, I'll try your suggestion.

V. 29-May-13 8:37am

If you say "pgp +batchmode C:\input.pgp\ -o C:\output.txt\" works in the command prompt. Why do you add "/C" before the command in code? Perhaps that's the culprit?

walterhevedeich 29-May-13 21:29pm

Thanks for the suggestion but it does not execute the application when I remove the /C switch. I will try SA's suggestion though.

walterhevedeich 29-May-13 21:30pm

I wonder why this was downvoted. I don't find this an invalid question.

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-29T05:52:00

Skip that "CMD.EXE".

This is a common mistake of the beginners who don't understand that CMD.EXE is a "usual" program, no better then yours. You program should be the parent process of your application, but instead, you play the role of the parent process of CMD.EXE, and you want CMD.EXE to play the role of the parent process for some other child process. This is possible, but totally redundant. I understand where it comes from: this is the result of user thinking, non-developer thinking.

All you need is this:

C#

System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("pgp", @"batchmode C:\input.pgp\ -o C:\output.txt\");
// but I think trailing '\' should be removed, so it should be:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("pgp", @"batchmode C:\input.pgp -o C:\output.txt");

—SA