Executing Batch File in C#

Question

I\'m trying to execute a batch file in C#, but I\'m not getting any luck doing it.

I\'ve found multiple examples on the Internet doing it, but it is not working for

Answer 1

I wanted something that was more directly usable without organization-specific hard-coded string values in it. I offer the following as a directly reusable chunk of code. The minor downside is needing to determine and pass the working folder when making the call.

public static void ExecuteCommand(string command, string workingFolder)
        {
            int ExitCode;
            ProcessStartInfo ProcessInfo;
            Process process;

            ProcessInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("cmd.exe", "/c " + command);
            ProcessInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
            ProcessInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
            ProcessInfo.WorkingDirectory = workingFolder;
            // *** Redirect the output ***
            ProcessInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
            ProcessInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;

            process = Process.Start(ProcessInfo);
            process.WaitForExit();

            // *** Read the streams ***
            string output = process.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
            string error = process.StandardError.ReadToEnd();

            ExitCode = process.ExitCode;

            MessageBox.Show("output>>" + (String.IsNullOrEmpty(output) ? "(none)" : output));
            MessageBox.Show("error>>" + (String.IsNullOrEmpty(error) ? "(none)" : error));
            MessageBox.Show("ExitCode: " + ExitCode.ToString(), "ExecuteCommand");
            process.Close();
        }

Called like this:

    // This will get the current WORKING directory (i.e. \bin\Debug)
    string workingDirectory = Environment.CurrentDirectory;
    // This will get the current PROJECT directory
    string projectDirectory = Directory.GetParent(workingDirectory).Parent.FullName;
    string commandToExecute = Path.Combine(projectDirectory, "TestSetup", "WreckersTestSetupQA.bat");
    string workingFolder = Path.GetDirectoryName(commandToExecute);
    commandToExecute = QuotesAround(commandToExecute);
    ExecuteCommand(commandToExecute, workingFolder);

In this example, from within Visual Studio 2017, as part of a test run, I want to run an environment reset batch file before executing some tests. (SpecFlow+xUnit). I got tired of extra steps for manually running the bat file separately, and wanted to just run the bat file as part of the C# test setup code. The environment reset batch file moves test case files back into the input folder, cleans up output folders, etc. to get to the proper test starting state for testing. The QuotesAround method simply puts quotes around the command line in case there are spaces in folder names ("Program Files", anyone?). All that's in it is this: private string QuotesAround(string input) {return "\"" + input + "\"";}

Hope some find this useful and save a few minutes if your scenario is similar to mine.