C# Console Application - Keep it running

Question

I am about to develop a console application that will be required to continually run and carry out work at specific times.

My question is what is are best methods or

Answer 1

Create a Task and then Wait it.

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var processTask = Process();
        processTask.Wait();
    }

    private static async Task Process()
    {
        var isNotCancelled = true;

        while (isNotCancelled)
        {
            //Polling time here
            await Task.Delay(1000);

            //TODO: Do work here and listen for cancel
            Console.WriteLine("I did  some work...");
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

Well I'm sure at some point it should stop, no?

Spawn a thread that does work, and have the main thread block on Console.ReadLine() if you want it to be runnable as a console app too.

If you really just want to pause the main thread forever, just block on a ManualResetEvent you never fire.

But, consider using a service if you can.

Answer 3

While you should really be using a service for this, if you need/want to do this anyway, you can use a ManualResetEvent to do this:

private ManualResetEvent Wait = new ManualResetEvent(false);

When you're finished 'starting' and want to just wait, you'd then do:

Wait.WaitOne();

When you want to stop and let it exit, you can then do:

Wait.Set();

Answer 4

A better solution would be to write a console application that does its job and quits. You can then use the Windows Task Scheduler to run it periodically.

Answer 5

You probably don't want to just spin in a loop needlessly consuming processor time.

Assuming you are on windows, you should have a loop that never ends with a call to WaitForSingleObject() or WaitForMultipleObjects() or MsgWaitForMultipleObjects() depending on your needs. Then have some synchronization object that wakes you up, such as a named event.

See the Win32 Synchronization documentation here. If you elaborate more on what your program needs to do, we can probably provide more specific advice.

Answer 6

Sending a thread to sleep: System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(10000);

Waiting for a key to be pressed: Console.WriteLine("Press any key to continue..."); Console.Read();