Cant put a wait on external application?

[FLX]

Hello all,

I have problems letting this application wait. I tried everything in my knowledge.
Here is the code:

                    System.Diagnostics.Process procdemux = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
                    procdemux.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = true;
                    procdemux.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = false;
                    procdemux.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = false;
                    procdemux.StartInfo.FileName = currentPath + "\\res\\demux.bat";
                    procdemux.Start();
                    procdemux.WaitForExit(3000);
                    procdemux.Close();
 

this code follows it up:

            System.Diagnostics.Process procencode = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
            procencode.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = true;
            procencode.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = false;
            procencode.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = false;
            procencode.StartInfo.FileName = currentPath + "\\res\\encode.bat";
            procencode.Start();
            procencode.WaitForExit(3000);
            procencode.Close(); 
 

Can someone please help me?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Dennis

[FLX]

please, someone?

Regards,

Dennis

[Atran]

Hello, I do not know this way, but I learn another way to stop your app:

//Stop your app for 1000 milliseconds.
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000);
 

This code will stop your app for 1 sec.
--------------------------------------------------------
But If you mean to wait for load something, I do not know.
"TRScheel" user help me with the code I give you.
Hope this help you.

[mwalts]

Hello, I do not know this way, but I learn another way to stop your app:

//Stop your app for 1000 milliseconds.
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000);
 

This code will stop your app for 1 sec.
--------------------------------------------------------
But If you mean to wait for load something, I do not know.
"TRScheel" user help me with the code I give you.
Hope this help you.

If you don't supply a time for the WaitForExit() call it will wait for as long as it takes the application to exit. Could you try explaining your problem a little bit better? I'm not sure I get what your asking.

-mwalts

[Plater]

You're currently only waiting 3 seconds before you are manually closing that process. Seems a bit quick?

[rancid11]

I have a similar problem. I want to run an external app for 20 seconds and then to close.

i am using waitforexit(20000) but it isn't working.
can u tell me how to close an application after 20 seconds ???
pls help me


private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

System.Diagnostics.Process p = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
p.StartInfo.FileName = @"calc.exe";
p.Start();
p.WaitForExit(20000);


}

[blackjack2150]

I have a similar problem. I want to run an external app for 20 seconds and then to close.

i am using waitforexit(20000) but it isn't working.
can u tell me how to close an application after 20 seconds ???
pls help me


private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

System.Diagnostics.Process p = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
p.StartInfo.FileName = @"calc.exe";
p.Start();
p.WaitForExit(20000);


}

This doesn't seem a good approach to me. In Win32 programming we had the WaitForSingleObject method, but in .NET....I don't know...yet.

If the application you're starting is also written by you, then you could create a small protocol using a semaphore file:
- create a semaphore file
- call the second app
- in the second app, before closing delete the semaphore file
- meanwhile in the main .NET app, check for the existence of the semaphore file every 500 ms or so:

while(File.Exists("sem.txt"))
{
Thread.Sleep(500);
}

[rancid11]

This doesn't seem a good approach to me. In Win32 programming we had the WaitForSingleObject method, but in .NET....I don't know...yet.

If the application you're starting is also written by you, then you could create a small protocol using a semaphore file:
- create a semaphore file
- call the second app
- in the second app, before closing delete the semaphore file
- meanwhile in the main .NET app, check for the existence of the semaphore file every 500 ms or so:

while(File.Exists("sem.txt"))
{
Thread.Sleep(500);
}

The application I want to terminate after the 20 seconds is SerialMagic, so I don't have access to the code.

[Plater]

Try this program flow:
Start your external application (using Process)
Tell the current application to wait (Thread.CurrentThread.Sleep()?) the desired time
Kill the external program (using the Process object from earlier)

I am not sure what your problem with the initial code was.
An external program was started
It was given 3seconds of time to open and run before you closed it

[TRScheel]

Why havent I seen this thread earlier?

Anyways, this will be useful to you:

private static bool CheckProcess(Process process)
{
    bool processFinished = true;
    try
    {
        process.Refresh();
        foreach (ProcessThread thread in process.Threads)
        {
            if (thread.ThreadState != System.Diagnostics.ThreadState.Terminated)
                processFinished = false;
        }
    }
    catch
    {
        processFinished = true;
    }
 
    return processFinished;
}

Just put that in a while loop, so something like:

while (!CheckProcess(process)) { }
 

If it refreshes the process when its disposed of, it will throw an error, so thats why we have the catch bit just return true. Otherwise, we look to find it when its terminated (fat chance catching right on THAT moment, hence the try/catch).

You are much more likely to run process.Refresh() and have it throw an exception than get the ThreadState to == Terminated when you check. Hence, if you want to be REALLY lazy, you could just see if you could refresh the process and see if that was possible. You might want to throw in the Wait and Unknown depending if the program just sits there after its done (and play around with the output to find out when its finished). In the above example, i was running a number of scripts that exited when done, so I knew that if I couldnt talk to it, they were done.

[TRScheel]

You can put a thread.sleep(#) in the loop to lessen the CPU load of sitting there just looping. Something like 100, or 250, shouldnt be too noticable.

[blackjack2150]

Here's another idea:

Do a while loop in which you check to see that the process you started is still running. If not, break out of the loop and continue on else loop again.
This way you don't have to guess how long it will take.

The Process class has all you need for this.

[TRScheel]

Here's another idea:

Do a while loop in which you check to see that the process you started is still running. If not, break out of the loop and continue on else loop again.
This way you don't have to guess how long it will take.

The Process class has all you need for this.

I fooled around with the process.HasExited but the problem exists that the program might just sit there doing nothing. Its threadstate gets stuck at unknown, wait, or something else. What's it doing? Waiting for user input? Printing? Done? Its a tough issue to take up depending on the program you are using.