How can I run some common code from both (a) scheduled via Windows Task & (b) manually from within WinForms app?

Question

Hi,

QUESTION - How can I run some common code from both (a) scheduled via Windows Task & (b) manually from within WinForms app?

BACKGROUND:

• This follows on from the http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2489999/how-can-i-schedule-tasks-in-a-winforms-app thread

REQUIREMENTS

• C# .NETv3.5 project using VS2008
• There is an existing function which I want to run both (a) manually from within the WinForms application, and (b) scheduled via Windows Task.

APPROACHES

• So what I'm trying to understand is what options are there to make this work eg
• Is it possible for a windows task to trigger a function to run within a running/existing WinForms application? (doesn't sound solid I guess)
• Split code out into two projects and duplicate for both console application that the task manager would run AND code that the winforms app would run
• Create a common library and re-use this for both the above-mentioned projects in the bullet above
• Create a service with an interface that both the task manager can access plus the winforms app can manage

Actually each of these approaches sounds quite messy/complex - would be really nice to drop back to have the code only once within the one project in VS2008, the only reason I ask about this is I need to have a scheduling function and the suggestion has been to use http://taskscheduler.codeplex.com/ as the means to do this, which takes the scheduling out of my VS2008 project...

thanks

Answer 1

I would definitely go for the approach to put the functionality into a common class library, and use that library in a console application (that is run as a scheduled task) and in a winforms application that can be run by the user. I have done this a numerous occasions, and I don't find it messy or complex at all. Quite the opposite; since you separate the functionality from how it interacts with the "user", you might even end up with cleaner code.