Question

I’ve some library code that is used by both console and WPF apps. In the library code, there are some Console.Read() calls. I only want to do those input reads if the app is a console app not if it’s a GUI app – how to tell in the dll if the app has a console?

Answer 1

In the end I did as follows:

// Property:
private bool? _console_present;
public bool console_present {
    get {
        if (_console_present == null) {
            _console_present = true;
            try { int window_height = Console.WindowHeight; }
            catch { _console_present = false; }
        }
        return _console_present.Value;
    }
}

//Usage
if (console_present)
    Console.Read();

Following thekips advice I added a delegate member to library class to get user validation – and set this to a default implimentation that uses above to check if theres a console and if present uses that to get user validation or does nothing if not (action goes ahead without user validation). This means:

1. All existing clients (command line apps, windows services (no user interaction), wpf apps) all work with out change.
2. Any non console app that needs input can just replace the default delegate with someother (GUI – msg box etc) validation.

Thanks to all who replied.