Can I send a ctrl-C (SIGINT) to an application on Windows?

Question

I have (in the past) written cross-platform (Windows/Unix) applications which, when started from the command line, handled a user-typed Ctrl-C combinat

Answer 1

Here is the code I use in my C++ app.

Positive points :

• Works from console app
• Works from Windows service
• No delay required
• Does not close the current app

Negative points :

• The main console is lost and a new one is created (see FreeConsole)
• The console switching give strange results...

---

// Inspired from http://stackoverflow.com/a/15281070/1529139
// and http://stackoverflow.com/q/40059902/1529139
bool signalCtrl(DWORD dwProcessId, DWORD dwCtrlEvent)
{
    bool success = false;
    DWORD thisConsoleId = GetCurrentProcessId();
    // Leave current console if it exists
    // (otherwise AttachConsole will return ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED)
    bool consoleDetached = (FreeConsole() != FALSE);

    if (AttachConsole(dwProcessId) != FALSE)
    {
        // Add a fake Ctrl-C handler for avoid instant kill is this console
        // WARNING: do not revert it or current program will be also killed
        SetConsoleCtrlHandler(nullptr, true);
        success = (GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent(dwCtrlEvent, 0) != FALSE);
        FreeConsole();
    }

    if (consoleDetached)
    {
        // Create a new console if previous was deleted by OS
        if (AttachConsole(thisConsoleId) == FALSE)
        {
            int errorCode = GetLastError();
            if (errorCode == 31) // 31=ERROR_GEN_FAILURE
            {
                AllocConsole();
            }
        }
    }
    return success;
}

Usage example :

DWORD dwProcessId = ...;
if (signalCtrl(dwProcessId, CTRL_C_EVENT))
{
    cout << "Signal sent" << endl;
}