Set application output type programmatically

Question

I am programming an application using the command line application output type to display debug information in the console while MOGRE is handling the actual window creation. I would like to hide the console when compiling the application for release. Not showing the console can easily be done by going into the project properties, the application tab and change the output type to windows application. When doing that only the MOGRE window will be shown.

While I believe it would be cleaner to create a windows application and attach a console to it when one wants that behavior I am still curious weather it is possible to do this programmatically.

That is, is there a way to programmatically determine that when compiling in debug mode the application compiles as command line application and when in release mode it compiles as windows application? And if so, how could it be done?

Edit: I am not asking how to attach a console to a windows forms application. I put the important part in italics out of hope that will make clearer what I want.

Answer 1

You can achieve this if you edit the .csproj manually:

• Right click on the project node in Solution Explorer
• Select "Unload Project"
• Right click on the project node in Solution Explorer
• Select "Edit MyApp.csproj"

Move the <OutputType ../> property group Xml element from the <PropertyGroup .../> Xml element without Condition to the property group with conditions corresponding to build configuration / platform.

Before:

<Project ToolsVersion="3.5" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    ...
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    ...
  </PropertyGroup>
  <PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' ">
    ...
  </PropertyGroup>
  <PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release|AnyCPU' ">
    ...
  </PropertyGroup>

After:

<Project ToolsVersion="3.5" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    ...
  </PropertyGroup>
  <PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' ">
    ...
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    ...
  </PropertyGroup>
  <PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Release|AnyCPU' ">
    ...
    <OutputType>WinExe</OutputType>
    ...
  </PropertyGroup>

And finish:

• Right click on the project node in Solution Explorer
• Select "Reload Project"

Here is a proof example:

class Program
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
#if DEBUG
        Console.WriteLine("test");
#else
        Application.Run(new Form1());
#endif
    }
}

It works, but I don't think this is officially supported, so use at your own risk :-)

Answer 2

Not very sure, if there is pure .NET way to achieve what you want to do, but there is a way to achieve this by using Windows APIs:

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool AllocConsole();

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool FreeConsole();

[DllImport("kernel32", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool AttachConsole(int dwProcessId);

Here is code sample that could be helpful to you: Attach Console to Windows Forms application