Is there a way to start/open the console from a WinForms/WPF application?

Question

Hi guys. I have a windows forms application and i want to open a console on demand (when i press a button for example) that i can interact with using the standard Console class. Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

Yes there is you'll need a litte bit on interop with Win32 to do it.

public class ConsoleHelper
{
 public static int Create()
 {
  if (AllocConsole())
   return 0;
  else
   return Marshal.GetLastWin32Error();
 }

 public static int Destroy()
 {
  if (FreeConsole())
   return 0;
  else
   return Marshal.GetLastWin32Error();
 }

 [System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis.SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Security", "CA2118:ReviewSuppressUnmanagedCodeSecurityUsage"), SuppressUnmanagedCodeSecurity]
 [DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
 [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
 static extern bool AllocConsole();


 [System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis.SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Security", "CA2118:ReviewSuppressUnmanagedCodeSecurityUsage"), SuppressUnmanagedCodeSecurity]
 [DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
 [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
 static extern bool FreeConsole();
}

Now you can call Create() to create console window associated with your app.

Answer 2

Checkout Eric Petroelje's answer here. It shows code that can create a console at runtime.