Processes, Threads, and Stacks
The .NET Framework
provides managed execution of code. However,
managed applications live alongside unmanaged applications, and need
to coexist. It can be useful for a managed application to have access
to information about the atoms of unmanaged execution, namely
operating system processes and threads. Additionally, since
“managed execution” implies the
existence of some overarching facility monitoring the execution
process itself, it is not unreasonable to wish for access to detailed
information about the execution process. Both of these needs are met
by the classes in the System.Diagnostics
namespace, providing access to unmanaged processes and threads, as
well as access to managed stack frames. Access to managed threads and
AppDomains, which are the managed equivalent of
processes, is accomplished using the System and
System.Threading namespaces.
Launching a New Process
The Process class can be used to
launch new operating system
processes, enumerate and kill existing ones, and monitor the vital
statistics of a running process. The Process.Start
method has overloads that range from taking the filename of an EXE to
launch to taking a populated ProcessStartInfo
instance, which fully specifies the parameters for process launching.
The latter approach can also be used to capture and redirect the
launched process’s stdin,
stdout and stderr, as the
following sample demonstrates:
public void LaunchDirCommand( ) { ProcessStartInfo psi = new ProcessStartInfo( ...