I have a program that frequently uses an external program and reads its outputs. It works pretty well using your usual process redirect output, but one specific argument for some reason hangs when I try to read it, no error message - no exception, it just 'stops' when it reaches that line. I of course use a centralized function to call and read output from the program, which is this:
public string ADBShell(string adbInput)
{
try
{
//Create Empty values
string result = string.Empty;
string error = string.Empty;
string output = string.Empty;
System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo procStartInfo
= new System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo(toolPath + "adb.exe");
procStartInfo.Arguments = adbInput;
procStartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
procStartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
procStartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
procStartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
procStartInfo.WorkingDirectory = toolPath;
System.Diagnostics.Process proc = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
proc.StartInfo = procStartInfo;
proc.Start();
// Get the output into a string
proc.WaitForExit();
result = proc.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
error = proc.StandardError.ReadToEnd(); //Some ADB outputs use this
if (result.Length > 1)
{
output += result;
}
if (error.Length > 1)
{
output += error;
}
Return output;
}
catch (Exception objException)
{
throw objException;
}
}
The line that hangs is result = proc.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
, but again, not every time, only when sent a specific argument ("start-server"). All other arguments work just fine - it reads the value and returns it.
It's also strange the way it hangs. It doesn't freeze or give an error or anything, it just stops processing. As if it was a 'return' command, except it doesn't even return to the calling function, it just stops everything with the interface still up and running.
Anyone experienced this before? Anyone have any idea what I should try? I'm assuming it's something unexpected within the stream itself, but is there a way I can handle/ignore this so that it reads it anyway?
Proposed solutions with BeginOutputReadLine()
are a good way but in situations such as that, it is not applicable, because process (certainly with using WaitForExit()
) exits earlier than async output finished completely.
So, I tried to implement it synchronously and found that the solution is in using Peek()
method from StreamReader
class. I added check for Peek() > -1
to sure that it is not the end of the stream as in MSDN article described and finally it works and stop hanging!
Here is the code:
var process = new Process();
process.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
process.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = @"C:\test\";
process.StartInfo.FileName = "test.exe";
process.StartInfo.Arguments = "your arguments here";
process.Start();
var output = new List<string>();
while (process.StandardOutput.Peek() > -1)
{
output.Add(process.StandardOutput.ReadLine());
}
while (process.StandardError.Peek() > -1)
{
output.Add(process.StandardError.ReadLine());
}
process.WaitForExit();