Should I include a command line mode in my applica

Question

For learning purposes i'm developing a Class generation application in c# and winforms. I think It could be fine to include a command-line mode that allow to use the application in scripts.

It's a good practice to include a command-line mode in my applications? It would be better to have two different programs, one with GUI in one for the command-line?

Answer 1

I agree with @Remus Rusanu.

you should create a class library of your core functionality and then build GUI app(wrapper) for that.

and one other benefit of it is you might not even need to create a command line app as you can access your .net dll features using powershell..

you can find one example over here

Answer 2

I very often create such a utility as an API. If I need to use it from a simple command-line utility, that's easy - it just calls the API. If the command-line gets too complex, maybe it's time for a Winforms application - which can also call the API. If I wanted to use it from PowerShell, or from an MSBUILD task, those are still easy - they just call the API.

Answer 3

You should include a command line interface in your application, if it enhances usability and comfort. For instance, calling a CLI command might be faster then starting the GUI, navigating through several menu layers to reach the same functionality. You might ask the users of your application, if they would find it useful to have a CLI mode.

Some words on marrying CLI & GUI on Windows: A windows application is either a GUI application or a Console application, but not both. This is an OS issue and there is probably nothing one can do about it. The console subsystem in Windows is horrible and PowerShell didn't change that.

Your implementation options on Windows are:

• the two files approach:

Provide two files: one .com with console, one .exe with GUI. Because of the executable probing on the command line, the com file will get executed before the exe.

• the console flickering approach:

Compile your GUI application with console mode on, then immediately after the start of the GUI you might call FreeConsole() to close it. It's a bit annoying, but works. Bad: now you have a flickering console window. Pro: still one file.

Answer 4

I'm not a C# programmer, but when I program in C++, I find it most useful to:

1.) Create both a shared library with a C as well as C++ API for performing core app functionality.

2.) Create one or more commandline binaries accessible to the shell interpreter.

3.) Create a GUI application for typical end users, implemented with the library (not by invoking the binaries).

This separates the logic of the application from the interface to the application, and enables thirdparty developers to create alternative interfaces for the same application functionality. It also makes it easy to script, while at the same time catering to typical end users who want a nice, shiny GUI.

Answer 5

If you want your utility/prgram run in scripts you can expose it as COM.

Many script languages for windows had the hability to use COM objects directly.

Answer 6

Creating an application on the windows platform that behaves correctly as a console application can be problematic it's an issue with the windows kernel architecture as they're considered two different types of application (they have a different subsystem that you generally specify in the compiler or linker options). You can still manually redirect the IO and open a console from a win32 application by the win32 function AllocConsole() and friends but this also has some issues. See This Old New Thing post for more information.