WPF application command line arguments instead of starting GUI

Question

I have WPF application and I want to add the option to do my stuff on the command line instead of opening the GUI.

Is there a way to get the command line arguments in my application and in case there are arguments continue without opening the GUI?

Answer 1

You could edit the App.xaml.cs file and override the OnStartup method:

public partial class App : Application
{
    protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
    {
        string[] args = e.Args;
        if(args.Length > 0 && args[0] == "cl")
        {
            //...
        }
        else
        {
            base.OnStartup(e);
            Window2 mainWindow = new Window2();
            mainWindow.Show();
        }
    }
}

You should also remove the StartupUri attribute from <Application> root element of the App.xaml file.

But if you want to be able to write to the console you need to create a console window manually:

No output to console from a WPF application?

Then you might as well create a console application in Visual Studio and instead start your WPF application based on the command line argument(s), e.g.:

public class Program
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        if (args.Length == 0 || args[0] != "cl")
        {
            System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(@"c:\yourWpfApp.exe");
        }
        else
        {
            //...
        }
    }
}

A console application is not a WPF application and vice versa. So create two different applications.