What is the simplest method of inter-process communication between 2 C# processes?

Question

I want to create a communication between a parent and a child process, both written in C#.

It should be asynchronous, event-driven.

I don\'t want to run a thre

Answer 1

If your processes in same computer, you can simply use stdio.

This is my usage, a web page screenshooter:

var jobProcess = new Process();

jobProcess.StartInfo.FileName = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location;
jobProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = "job";

jobProcess.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = false;
jobProcess.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;

jobProcess.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
jobProcess.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
jobProcess.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;

// Just Console.WriteLine it.
jobProcess.ErrorDataReceived += jp_ErrorDataReceived;

jobProcess.Start();

jobProcess.BeginErrorReadLine();

try
{
    jobProcess.StandardInput.WriteLine(url);
    var buf = new byte[int.Parse(jobProcess.StandardOutput.ReadLine())];
    jobProcess.StandardOutput.BaseStream.Read(buf, 0, buf.Length);
    return Deserz(buf);
}
finally
{
    if (jobProcess.HasExited == false)
        jobProcess.Kill();
}

Detect args on Main

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    if (args.Length == 1 && args[0]=="job")
    {
        //because stdout has been used by send back, our logs should put to stderr
        Log.SetLogOutput(Console.Error); 

        try
        {
            var url = Console.ReadLine();
            var bmp = new WebPageShooterCr().Shoot(url);
            var buf = Serz(bmp);
            Console.WriteLine(buf.Length);
            System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(100);
            using (var o = Console.OpenStandardOutput())
                o.Write(buf, 0, buf.Length);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Log.E("Err:" + ex.Message);
        }
    }
    //...
}