Question

I have a WinForms application that I’d like to have ability to run as a console application too (with 2 command-line arguments).

I tried the approach from this question Behavior in WinForm/Console Hybrid Application. But in this case, the methods of the FormMain.cs (FormMain class) are not accessible from the Program class (Program.cs).

How should I modify the code to be able to execute the FormMain.cs methods from the Program.cs?

UPD

The Program.cs code is

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

namespace Feature
{

internal static class NativeMethods
{
    [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
    internal static extern Boolean AllocConsole();
}

static class Program
{
    [STAThread]
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        if (args.Length == 0)
        {
            // run as windows app
            Application.EnableVisualStyles();
            Application.Run(new FormMain(args));
        }
        else
        {
            // run as console app
            NativeMethods.AllocConsole();
            //??? How to access the methods of FormMain here ???
        }
    }
}

}

The FormMain.cs code (i have reduced it a bit) is

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections;
using System.Xml.XPath;
using System.Xml;
using Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel;
using System.Reflection;

namespace Feature
{
public partial class FormMain : Form
{
    public FormMain(string[] Args)
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    public ArrayList Errors = new ArrayList();

    public ArrayList GetDirectoriesRecursively(string startPath)
    {
        string[] oNewDirectories = Directory.GetDirectories(startPath);
        ArrayList oDirectories = new ArrayList();
        ArrayList oDirectoriesNewList;

        foreach (string oCurrent in oNewDirectories)
        {
            oDirectories.Add(oCurrent);
            oDirectoriesNewList = GetDirectoriesRecursively(oCurrent);
            if (oDirectoriesNewList.Count > 0) oDirectories.AddRange(oDirectoriesNewList);
        }
        return oDirectories;
    }

    public ArrayList GetFilesInFolder(string startPath, string pattern)
    {
        string[] oNewFiles = Directory.GetFiles(startPath, pattern);
        ArrayList oFiles = new ArrayList();
        foreach (string oCurrent in oNewFiles)
            oFiles.Add(oCurrent);
        return oFiles;
    }
}

}

Answer 1

You may be looking at this backward: Instead of hoping to get access to your useful functions found in Form.cs – if they’re that useful – you should, instead, move them to an external location where you can control their accessibility more easily.