how to change the directory location in command prompt using C#?

Question

I have successfully opened command prompt window using C# through the following code.

    Process p = new Process();
    p.StartInfo.FileName = "cmd.exe";
    p.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = @"d:\pdf2xml";
    p.StartInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Normal;
    p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
    p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
    p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;


    p.Start();

    p.StandardInput.WriteLine(@"pdftoxml.win32.1.2.7 -annotation "+filename);

    p.StandardInput.WriteLine(@"cd D:\python-source\ds-xmlStudio-1.0-py27");

    p.StandardInput.WriteLine(@"main.py -i example-8.xml -o outp.xml");

    p.WaitForExit();

But, i have also passed command to change the directory.

problems:

1. how to change the directory location?
2. Cmd prompt will be shown always after opened...

Please guide me to get out of those issue...

Answer 1

To change the startup directory, you can change it by setting p.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory to the directory that you are interested in. The reason that your directory is not changing is because the argument /c d:\test. Instead try /c cd d:\test

 Process p = new Process();
 p.StartInfo.FileName = "cmd.exe";
 p.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = @"C:\";
 p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
 ...
 p.Start();

You can hide the command prompt by setting p.StartInfo.WindowStyle to Hidden to avoid showing that window.

 p.StartInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.diagnostics.processstartinfo.windowstyle.aspx

Answer 2

You can use p.StandardInput.WriteLine to send commands to cmd window. For this just set the p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput to ture. like below

        Process p = new Process();
        p.StartInfo.FileName = "cmd.exe";
        //p.StartInfo.Arguments = @"/c D:\\pdf2xml";
        p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
        p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
        p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
        p.Start();

        p.StandardInput.WriteLine(@"cd D:\pdf2xml");
        p.StandardInput.WriteLine("d:");