Need examples of Win console apps that yield useful data

[kyrathaba]

So, for the last few weeks I've been writing a book (via my private DokuWiki and simultaneously in .epub and .prc formats) about some of the things I've learned to do with C# over the last decade. I'm at a place in the book where I show how to capture output from some other process that is initiated by my C# app. I'm looking for a couple of Windows command-line programs that are complex enough to yield data not just-as-easily-derived by the calling application. It's okay if the C# app needs to do some string parsing, etc., with the returned data. I'm just wanting to give a good example of not re-inventing the wheel.

[Ath]

For my NANY 2015 entry SedTester I found these resources/examples:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/285760/how-to-spawn-a-process-and-capture-its-stdout-in-net
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/206323/how-to-execute-command-line-in-c-get-std-out-results
That's what I based my call-out to sed.exe on. That piece of code is quite specific (and poorly documented ), so I hope this enough for now.

[kyrathaba]

Thanks, Ath! Appreciate it.

[KodeZwerg]

I havent checked out the link from Ath, when using Delphi to capture console, we work with pipes.
I show you how i do it that the output do not lag / it display everything like console would display it, and not just the final result.
FYI: In Delphi, a TMemo is a control that can contain Text.

Code: (delphi)

procedure CaptureConsoleOutput(const ACommand, AParameters: String; AMemo: TMemo);
 const
   CReadBuffer = 2400;
 var
   saSecurity: TSecurityAttributes;
   hRead: THandle;
   hWrite: THandle;
   suiStartup: TStartupInfo;
   piProcess: TProcessInformation;
   pBuffer: array[0..CReadBuffer] of Char;
   dRead: DWord;
   dRunning: DWord;
 begin
   saSecurity.nLength := SizeOf(TSecurityAttributes);
   saSecurity.bInheritHandle := True;  
   saSecurity.lpSecurityDescriptor := nil; 
 
   if CreatePipe(hRead, hWrite, @saSecurity, 0) then
   begin    
     FillChar(suiStartup, SizeOf(TStartupInfo), #0);
     suiStartup.cb := SizeOf(TStartupInfo);
     suiStartup.hStdInput := hRead;
     suiStartup.hStdOutput := hWrite;
     suiStartup.hStdError := hWrite;
     suiStartup.dwFlags := STARTF_USESTDHANDLES or STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW;    
     suiStartup.wShowWindow := SW_HIDE; 
 
     if CreateProcess(nil, PChar(ACommand + ' ' + AParameters), @saSecurity,
       @saSecurity, True, NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS, nil, nil, suiStartup, piProcess)
       then
     begin
       repeat
         dRunning  := WaitForSingleObject(piProcess.hProcess, 100);        
         Application.ProcessMessages(); 
         repeat
           dRead := 0;
           ReadFile(hRead, pBuffer[0], CReadBuffer, dRead, nil);          
           pBuffer[dRead] := #0; 
 
           OemToAnsi(pBuffer, pBuffer);
           AMemo.Lines.Add(String(pBuffer));
         until (dRead < CReadBuffer);      
       until (dRunning <> WAIT_TIMEOUT);
       CloseHandle(piProcess.hProcess);
       CloseHandle(piProcess.hThread);    
     end; 
 
     CloseHandle(hRead);
     CloseHandle(hWrite);
   end;
end;

I hope it helps.

[kyrathaba]

Thanks, KodeZwerg.

I've got a pretty decent grasp of the code. What I'm looking for are examples of Windows CLI programs whose output it could be useful to capture from within another program.

[KodeZwerg]

You mean like "net.exe" or "robocopy.exe" or "upx.exe" ?

[x16wda]

I have some rexx code that uses tslistusers.exe (from here) and some wmic.exe commands to produce a nice web page showing who's logged into the rds farm desktops and what remoteapps they're running. I do a good bit of scripting and use a lot of little utilities (eg, unxutils) and grab and parse output if I need it.

[Mark0]

I humbly propose my TrID tool.
Your example could be a GUI interface for it.

[kyrathaba]

Thanks x16wda and Mark0