Message pump in a console application

Question

I have a fairly simple console application written in .NET. Sometimes the application is run in batch mode without an operator, other times it is run \"out of pocket\". If i

Answer 1

You could use the event handling mechanism of .NET. Reposting from here.

Imports System.Threading.Thread

Module Module1
    Private Second As Integer = 1
    Private Tick As New Timers.Timer(1000)

    Sub Main()

        AddHandler tick.Elapsed, AddressOf Ticker 'Event for the timer tick

        Dim NewThread As System.Threading.Thread = New System.Threading.Thread(AddressOf LookForKeyPress) 'New thread to check for key press
        NewThread.Start() 'Start thread

        Console.WriteLine("Now awaiting key presses...")
        tick.Enabled = True 'Enable the timer
    End Sub

    Private Sub Ticker()
        'every tick this sub is called and the seconds are displayed till a key is pressed
        Console.WriteLine(Second)
        Second += 1

    End Sub

    Private Sub LookForKeyPress()

        While True
            Dim k As ConsoleKeyInfo = Console.ReadKey() 'read for a key press
            If Not k.Key.ToString.Length <= 0 Then 'check the length of the key string pressed, mainly because the key in this case will be apart of the system.consolekey
                Console.WriteLine(Environment.NewLine & "Key Pressed: " & k.Key.ToString) 'display the key pressed
                Second = 1 'restart the timer
            End If
        End While

    End Sub

End Module

Hope I helped!