Question

I have written a console application, which is essentially a Console.ReadLine()-Loop. When the application is waiting for input, pressing the up arrow key iterates through all previous lines of input. My application does not contain any code for this feature. What part of Windows provides this? How can I disable it?

I can only image that it’s either a feature of the console subsystem or implemented in Console.ReadLine().

Here is some sample code that exhibits the described behavior:

namespace ConsoleApplication
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string input;
            do
            {
                input = System.Console.ReadLine();
            } while (input != "exit");
        }
    }
}

I would like to disable the history feature for now, and re-implement it later using my own code. The current behavior is too limited.

Answer 1

you can change this behaviour of windows programmatically by calling SetConsoleHistoryInfo with a correctly setup CONSOLE_HISTORY_INFO structure… there seems to be no managed class/method so you will have to use DllImport etc.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms686031%28v=VS.85%29.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms682077%28v=VS.85%29.aspx

IF need be – several other aspects of the console can be handled in a managed way – see c# console, Console.Clear problem