Execing Processes in C#
Our example demonstrates how to replace the current process with another executable using C#. This is similar to the classic exec
function in Unix-like systems.
In C#, we don’t have a direct equivalent to the syscall.Exec
function that completely replaces the current process. Instead, we use the Process
class to start a new process and optionally wait for it to complete.
Here’s a breakdown of what the code does:
We create a
ProcessStartInfo
object to configure how the new process should be started.We set the
FileName
to “cmd.exe” and provide arguments to run the “dir” command (the Windows equivalent of “ls”).We set
UseShellExecute
to false andRedirectStandardOutput
to true so we can capture the output.We use
Process.Start
to start the new process.We read the output of the process and print it to the console.
We wait for the process to exit using
WaitForExit()
.
When you run this program, it will execute the “dir” command and display its output:
Note that C# and .NET don’t offer a direct equivalent to Unix’s fork
function. However, the Process
class, along with other .NET features like Task
and Thread
, cover most use cases for process and thread management in C#.