returning value to main C#

Question

I'll start by saying that i am no beginner in C# but not very much more and need help returning value to main. Or rather tell me what is the "correct" way.

I want to return a fail value (simply -1) from the application, in case of any exception and ending up in a catch. In that case passing info to main to return -1.

The way I solved it was by just adding a static global variable mainReturnValue (to be able to access it from main), and setting its value to -1 in the catches.

Is that a correct way of doing it, based on my current code?

If anyone is wondering the applications is executed without user interaction and that's why I need to catch the exit state. The form/GUI just displays info about the progress, in case it's started manually.

namespace ApplicationName
{
/// <summary>
/// Summary description for Form1.
/// </summary>
public class Form1 : System.Windows.Forms.Form
{ ...

static int mainReturnValue = 0; //the return var

static int Main(string[] args) 
{
    Application.Run(new Form1(args));

    return mainReturnValue; //returning 0 or -1 before exit
}

private void Form1_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{ 
    the code..in turn also calling some sub functions such as DoExportData...and I want to be able to return the value to main from any function...
}

private int DoExportData(DataRow dr, string cmdText)
{
    try { ... } 
    catch
    { mainReturnValue = -1; }
}  

Thanks.

Answer 1

You could do this:

static int Main(string[] args)
{
    Form1 form1 = new Form1(args);
    Application.Run(form1);
    return form1.Result;
}

and then define a property on your Form1 class, whose value you can set after the DoExportData method executes. For example:

public int Result { get; private set; }

private void Form1_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{ 
    Result = DoExportData(...);
}

private int DoExportData(DataRow dr, string cmdText)
{
    try 
    {
        ...
        return 0;
    } 
    catch
    { 
        return -1; 
    }
}

Answer 2

How to: Get and Set the Application Exit Code from MSDN.

By the way, an exit code of 0 indicates success, while anything > 0 indicates an error.