Question

I have a console application I wrote in C# that polls multiple devices, collects some data, and stores the information on a database. The application runs on our web server, and I was wondering how to invoke a method call from the command console (so I can exec a command from php that will be read by the console application, a shell command would work as well).

Anyone got any ideas? I’ve been floating around ‘the google’ and have found nothing that will supply my current needs.

Also, i’m not adverse to making changes to the console application if an overhaul is needed there. Please, if your answer is COM Interop, provide a GOOD example of how I would build and call this from PHP / Apache2.

Answer 1

You could create a Service like this:

[ServiceContract]
public interface IService
{
    [OperationContract]
    [WebInvoke(
      Method = "GET",
      UriTemplate = "/magic")]
    void MagicMethod();

}

And a service implementation like this:

public class Service : IService
{
    public void MagicMethod()
    {
        //magic here
    }
}

to start a HTTP Service it should look like this:

WebServiceHost host = new WebServiceHost(typeof(Service), new Uri("http://127.0.0.1:8080"))
ServiceEndpoint ep = host.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(IService), new WebHttpBinding(), "");
ServiceDebugBehavior stp = host.Description.Behaviors.Find<ServiceDebugBehavior>();

stp.HttpHelpPageEnabled = false;
host.Open();  

This will start a HTTP server on port 8080.
Then you can make a HTTP Get request to ‘http://localhost:8080/magic’ to invoke the method call.