Question

I’m attempting to run a series of commands programmatically, read the error codes, and detect if these codes indicate success or failure so I can respond accordingly.

Currently my commands are using psexec which then launches robocopy. I’ve noted that while most commands return an error code of 0 if the program is successful, robocopy is odd in that it returns values in the range of 0-8 even if the operation is successful, so I am adding some extra logic in my error detection to note when robocopy returns an error code which otherwise suggests a failure.

The problem is that in this same set of commands I’m using PSExec to launch various other executables and batch files, so I need an error detection solution that allows me to know when robocopy is the one returning these error codes or if it’s PSExec because an error code of 5 in robocopy is fine usually whereas an error code of 5 in PSExec says that access is denied.

So my question is, how do I know which program has returned the error code? I’m using c# .NET 4.0, and I’m using the Process class to programmatically launch these programs. I set the program name as psexec, and the arguments include the robocopy or other programs. I then run, wait for the exit, and store the error code, then attempt to parse it.

What do you all suggest?

Here is a code snippet:

foreach (var command in commands)
        {
            // TODO: Add exception handling
            string processName = command.Split(delimiters).ToList().ElementAt(0);    // split up command into pieces, select first "token" as the process name
            string commandArguments = command.Replace(processName + " ", ""); // remove the process name and following whitespace from the command itself, storing it in a new variable
            Process commandProcess = new Process(); // declare a new process to be used
            commandProcess.StartInfo.FileName = processName;    // add file start info for filename to process
            commandProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = commandArguments;  // add file start info for arguments to process
            commandProcess.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;  // skip permissions request
            commandProcess.Start();   // start process according to command's data
            commandProcess.WaitForExit();   // wait for the process to exit before continuing
            bool commandSuccessful = ParseCommandErrorCode(commandProcess, commandProcess.ExitCode);    // grab error code
            if (!commandSuccessful)
            {
                // ERROR! abort operation and inform the user of the last completed operation, and how many commands have not been run
            } // end if
            Console.WriteLine("Error code: {0}", commandProcess.ExitCode);    // print error code
            commandProcess.Close(); // close process
        } // end foreach

Answer 1

Haven’t you already answered your own question? You will have to match the error code to success or failure for each utility. commandProcess.StartInfo.FileName will tell you if the utility launched was robocopy or PSExe. When parsing the error code, map the value to success or failure depending on the name of the file.