How can I pipe console output to an ASP.NET page as it appears?

Question

I'd like to run a console program from an ASP.NET page, pipe the output into a label or some other control, and have it updated dynamically as each Console.Writeline happens.

How do I do that?

Answer 1

You can capture standard output from another program with the ProcessStartInfo class: set RedirectStandardOutput to true, and then read the programs output from the StandardOutput property.

The data you read can be used for whatever purpose you wish.

Answer 2

Run the console app as a part of a web service (WCF with XML or JSON) and refresh periodically using ASP.NET AJAX. This way, data transfer is minimal, a periodic query with occasional extra data in the reply.