Making Console Application like Windows Application

Question

I have a console application and I want it to wait till some event is raised. But it executes the code and exits:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
  var someObjectInstance = new SomeObject();
  someObjectInstance.SomeEvent += SomeEventHandler;
}

static void SomeEventHandler()
{
  //some logic
}

I want to make my application behave like Windows Application where

Application.Run(new Form1());

is called and message loop is runned.

But I don't need neither message loop nor any form. So it looks like overhead. Is there any more light-weight way to achieve my goal?

Answer 1

Add

Console.ReadLine(); after you attach your eventhandler.

For example..

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        System.IO.FileSystemWatcher watcher = new System.IO.FileSystemWatcher(@"c:\", "*.txt");
        watcher.Created += new System.IO.FileSystemEventHandler(watcher_Created);
        watcher.EnableRaisingEvents = true;
        Console.ReadLine();
    }

    static void watcher_Created(object sender, System.IO.FileSystemEventArgs e)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0} was created at {1:hh:mm:ss}", e.FullPath, DateTime.Now));
    }
}

Answer 2

First off, unless SomeObject is going to raise the event on a separate thread, this won't work without some form of processing in SomeObject. If it's designed that way, however, this is fairly straightforward.

A very efficient way of handling this is to just wait on a WaitHandle:

private static ManualResetEvent waitHandle = new ManualResetEvent(false);
static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var someObjectInstance = new SomeObject();
    someObjectInstance.SomeEvent += SomeEventHandler;
    waitHandle.WaitOne(); // Will block until event occurs
}

static void SomeEventHandler()
{
    //some logic
    waitHandle.Set(); // Will allow Main() to continue, exiting the program
}