Develop Reference

How do i include batch files inside of my .exe Instead of needing them in the folder the .exe is located in

So been searching or the web but can't seem to find an answer that has helped me. I have been looking for almost a week now.
I created a program in vs, alongside with some batch files. The Batch files run great by themselves and through the debug/release when including them in the folder with the .exe.
My problem is I want to be able to ONLY have the .exe file from my release and it still work.
Is there a way i can build these files inside the .exe? I have tried using c# to write my console commands instead of including seperate batch files. But im pretty new to c# and i get nothing but errors with the commands i want to run/if i run to many lines.
I would much rather have just c# instead of including the batch files but that I can't seem to figure out a solution to either.
Any help would be appreciated.
This is me currently calling batch files which works just fine. Again, if there is a way to just write this in c# instead of calling a batch file I would be happy to learn.
Process process = new Process();
ProcessStartInfo psi = new ProcessStartInfo();
psi.CreateNoWindow = false;
psi.Verb = "runas";
psi.FileName = Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location) + #"/" + "undo.bat";
psi.UseShellExecute = true;
process.StartInfo = psi;
_ = process.Start();
process.WaitForExit();
I'm starting CyberSecurity soon and am playing around with some Security stuff on my computer. Below is a sample code from my batch file to enable Security Protocols. If anything how would i write this in c#?
echo ...
echo Enabling Windows Firewall
netsh advfirewall set allprofiles state on
echo Enalbing HyperVisor
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto
echo Enabling UAC
%windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
echo.
echo.
echo Your Computer will now be restarting for changes to take effect!
timeout 10
shutdown /r /t 001

What you can do is include the batchfiles as embedded resources in your project. Then read them and then execute them.
to include them as embedded resources example...
add them to your project.
right click and go to properties
select embedded resource
then to extract...
Write file from assembly resource stream to disk
you can then write the file to disk and create process on it. or there is a way to execute cmd.exe without writing the file to disk but this is a little complicated so the best way is to just write to disk.
Execute BATCH script in a programs memory

I followed the guide given above and a few others to get my solution to work. Embed the resource that's in your solution, then I used the following code to pretty much create the functions of being able to write it.
private static void Extract(string nameSpace, string outDirectory, string internalFilePath, string resourceName)
{
Assembly assembly = Assembly.GetCallingAssembly();
using (Stream s = assembly.GetManifestResourceStream(nameSpace + "." + (internalFilePath == "" ? "" : internalFilePath + ".") + resourceName))
using (BinaryReader r = new BinaryReader(s))
using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(outDirectory + "//" + resourceName, FileMode.OpenOrCreate))
using (BinaryWriter w = new BinaryWriter(fs))
w.Write(r.ReadBytes((int)s.Length));
}
Here is what I used to save, execute then delete the file.
Extract("nameSpace", "outDirectory", "internalFilePath", "resourceName");
Process process = new Process();
ProcessStartInfo psi = new ProcessStartInfo();
psi.CreateNoWindow = false;
psi.Verb = "runas";
psi.FileName = #"C:/" + "resourceName";
psi.UseShellExecute = true;
process.StartInfo = psi;
_ = process.Start();
process.WaitForExit();
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(10);
if ((System.IO.File.Exists(psi.FileName)))
{
System.IO.File.Delete(psi.FileName);
}
Keep in mind im new when it comes to this so im sure there is a better way of writing it, but this worked for me!

Pass Image object as a parameter from C# to Python

I want to pass an image object from my c# project to my python script however from my understanding whatever there is in the arguments it is considered as string and also when I try type(passedImage) in python it identifies it as a string even if I try to put a number instead of the image variable.
ProcessStartInfo start = new ProcessStartInfo();
start.FileName = #"C:\Python\Python36\python.exe";
start.Arguments = string.Format("{0} {1}", #"C:\OCRonImage2.py", image );
start.UseShellExecute = false;
start.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
start.CreateNoWindow = true;
using (Process process = Process.Start(start))
{
}

When executing OCRonImage2.py manually, is it an image file location that you would pass as an argument? I would be surprise if you would pass in a stream from the command line. It is no surprise that attempting to put the entire image's bytes into an argument would create a string too long. But with the error you reported, I would also believe that the python script was expecting a file path to the image. However, if you look at that python code, I wouldn't be surprised if you find it using the filepath argument to open the file, probably using Image.open(filepath,mode=r). Mode is optional, r is the default.
You are in luck however, Image.open also takes a stream. If you are willing to modify the python code there are two options:
Try converting the argument to a stream object, since the argument is a string maybe use io.StringIO()
Use input() instead of the argument passed, then you could redirect the input of the process and stream the file into your python.
ProcessStartInfo start = new ProcessStartInfo();
start.FileName = #"C:\Python\Python36\python.exe";
start.Arguments = string.Format("{0}", #"C:\OCRonImage2.py");
start.UseShellExecute = false;
start.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
start.RedirectStandardInput = true;
start.CreateNoWindow = true;
using (Process process = Process.Start(start))
{
StreamWriter streamWriter = process.StandardInput;
streamWriter.Write({imageString});
// ...
}
Be sure the way you encode imageString the same as the decoding is performed in the python script.
Hopefully one of these solutions will work for you.

As I work with the Anaconda distribution of Python, in my tests on an isolated conda environment, the OCR is successful with pytesseract through a Python script, on a test image.
Prerequisites to test:
install Anaconda and create an env called py3.7.4: conda create --name py3.7.4
activate the env with conda activate py3.7.4
install pytesseract with conda install -c conda-forge pytesseract
create a folder called Test and place a jpg file called ocr.jpg with the following sample image:
in the same Test folder also place a Python script called ocr_test.py with the following code:
import pytesseract
from PIL import Image
import argparse
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
description='perform OCR on image')
parser.add_argument("--path", "-p", help="path for image")
args = parser.parse_args()
print(pytesseract.image_to_string(Image.open(args.path)))
print("done")
The above snippet accepts the image path as a command line argument. The --path flag must be specified in order to pass the image path as an arg.
Now, in the C# code snippet below, we will:
launch the cmd shell
navigate to the workingDirectory Test folder by specifying the WorkingDirectory arg for the process.start() method.
activate Anaconda with the anaconda.bat file(replace the file path as per its location on your computer)
activate the above conda environment
call the Python script passing the imageFileName as an arg.
C# snippet:
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Threading;
namespace PyTest
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string workingDirectory = #"C:\Test";
string imageFileName = "ocr.JPG";
var process = new Process
{
StartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo
{
FileName = "cmd.exe",
RedirectStandardInput = true,
UseShellExecute = false,
RedirectStandardOutput = false,
WorkingDirectory = workingDirectory
}
};
process.Start();
using (var sw = process.StandardInput)
{
if (sw.BaseStream.CanWrite)
{
// Vital to activate Anaconda
sw.WriteLine(#"C:\Users\xxxxxxx\Anaconda3\Scripts\activate.bat");
Thread.Sleep(500);
// Activate your environment
sw.WriteLine("conda activate py3.7.4");
Thread.Sleep(500);
sw.WriteLine($"python ocr_test.py --path {imageFileName}");
Thread.Sleep(50000);
}
}
}
}
}
If you have followed the above steps, you should receive the following output on executing the C# snippet in Visual Studio:
Output:
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.535]
(c) 2019 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\xxxxxxx\Projects\Scripts>C:\Users\xxxxx\Anaconda3\Scripts\activate.bat
(base) C:\xxxxxx\Projects\Scripts>conda activate py3.7.4
(py3.7.4) C:\xxxxxxx\Projects\Scripts>python ocr_test.py --path ocr.JPG
Introduction
This is a test to see accuracy of Tesseract OCR
Test 1
Test 2
done
Note: I am unable to test with a standalone Python distro but I believe it should work just fine with that too. The key is to pass the image file path as an argument to the Python script too. That way, the image file path passed as argument from C# is treated similarly by Python too. Also, using Image.open() does the following(from the docs):
Opens and identifies the given image file. This is a lazy operation;
this function identifies the file, but the file remains open and the
actual image data is not read from the file until you try to process
the data

You can save the image as a file somewhere on your local machine and give the python program the path to read it.
That's the easiest way I think you can do.
Edited: You can use a temporary file to make sure the file can be deleted in the future
http://www.java2s.com/Tutorial/CSharp/0300__File-Directory-Stream/Createatempfileanddeleteit.htm
http://www.vcskicks.com/temporary-file.php

I think this will be bad to pass IMAGE as Argument.
Good options to go with:
Stdin on your python example, and RedirectStandardInput on your c#.
TCP Communication. Using TCP Services (No Internet Needed)
Sharing Memory. (More Info, ReadyLib)

How to combine multiple gz files into one from Process in C# program when one is missing EOF

I have multiple .gz files in a directory (2 or more), with at least one file missing the end of file marker. Our C# process is unable to read the file with missing end of file, but since they are coming from a third party we do not have control over how they are created.
As such, we've been running the following Linux command manually:
cat file1.gz file2.gz > newFile.gz
In order to automate this, I am looking for a way to leverage the Process functionality in C# to trigger the same command, but this would only be available in Cygwin or some other Linux shell. In my example, I'm using git bash but it could be Powershell or Cygwin or any other available Linux shell that runs on a Windows box.
The following code does not fail, but it does not work as expected. I am wondering if anyone has recommendations about how to do this or any suggestions on a different approach to consider?
Assume that the working directory is set and initialized successfully, so the files exist where the process is run from.
Process bashProcess = new Process();
bashProcess.StartInfo.FileName = #"..\Programs\Git\git-bash.exe";
bashProcess.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
bashProcess.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
bashProcess.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
bashProcess.Start();
bashProcess.StandardInput.WriteLine("cat file1.gz file2.gz > newFile.gz");
bashProcess.StandardInput.WriteLine("exit");
bashProcess.StandardInput.Flush();
.
.
.
bashProcess.WaitForExit();
My expectation is that newFile.gz is created

I was able to find a solution to my problem using a DOS command, and spawning a cmd Process from CSharp.
My code now looks like this, avoids having to launch a linux-based shell from Windows, and the copy command in windows does the same thing as cat:
Process proc = new Process();
proc.EnableRaisingEvents = false;
proc.StartInfo.FileName = "cmd";
proc.StartInfo.Arguments = #"/C pushd \\server\folder && copy *.txt.gz /b
combined.gz";
proc.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
proc.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
proc.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
proc.Start();
proc.WaitForExit();
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(2000);
string line = proc.StandardOutput.ReadLine();
while (line != null)
{
output.Append(line);
line = proc.StandardOutput.ReadLine();
}

C# code do not run complete python script in visual studio

First of all I do not know if it is a bad practice to call python script from c# so if this is the case please tell me.My current problem is as follows.
MY c# code only runs the python script partially....
means (python script create only 4 files when it is supposed to create 10 files)
But When I run my script from cmd in windows I see complete functionality....
Another thing I saw is when I stop my Visual Studio(2013) I see the complete functionality
I am calling the python script(main.py) from c# like this...
public JsonResult FetchscrapyDataUrl(String website)
{
ProcessStartInfo start = new ProcessStartInfo();
start.FileName = #"C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\python.exe";
start.Arguments = #"C:\Users\PycharmProjects\scraping_web\scrape_info\main.py";
//this is path to .py file from scrapy project
start.CreateNoWindow = false; // We don't need new window
start.UseShellExecute = false; // Do not use OS shell
//start.RedirectStandardOutput = true;// Any output, generated by application will be redirected back
start.RedirectStandardError = true; // Any error in standard output will be redirected back (for example exceptions)
Console.WriteLine("Python Starting");
start.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
using (Process process = Process.Start(start))
{
using (StreamReader reader = process.StandardOutput)
{
string stderr = process.StandardError.ReadToEnd(); // Here are the exceptions from our Python script
string result = reader.ReadToEnd(); // Here is the result of StdOut(for example: print "test")
Console.Write(result);
}
}
}
Why I am getting complete script functionality when I stop in Visual Studio(2013)??

I dont understand you motivation behind this. But why dont you use IronPython which is excellent addition to the .NET Framework, providing Python developers with the power of the .NET framework.

Using a command line program from within a C# application

I have written a C++ program (which executes from the command line), that works fine. Now I need to use it for my C# application. That is to say, I would like the output from my C++ program to be used in my C# application whenever it is called.
Is it possible? If so, how?
Any links or help would be appreciated.

You can use System.Diagnostics.Process to fire up your C++ program and redirect its output to a stream for use in your C# application. The information in this question details the specifics:
string command = "arg1 arg2 arg3"; // command line args
string exec = "filename.exe"; // executable name
string retMessage = String.Empty;
ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
Process p = new Process();
startInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
startInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
startInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
startInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
startInfo.Arguments = command;
startInfo.FileName = exec;
p.StartInfo = startInfo;
p.Start();
using (StreamReader output = p.StandardOutput)
{
retMessage = output.ReadToEnd();
}
p.WaitForExit();
return retMessage;

Make your C++ code DLL, and use pinvoke to call the C++ functions from C# code.
Read this article: Calling Win32 DLLs in C# with P/Invoke
Another way to do this is to use Process class from .Net. Using Process, you don't need to make your C++ code DLL; you can start your C++ EXE as a process from C# code.

You could have your C++ program write it's output to a file, and have your C# program read from the file.
If your application is very performance sensitive, then this is not the best way.
Here is the C# code to run the C++ program:
try
{
Process p = StartProcess(ExecutableFileName);
p.Start();
p.WaitForExit();
}
catch
{
Log("The program failed to execute.");
}
Now you are left to write to the file from your C++ program, and read from it in your C# program.
This will show you how to write to a file from your C++ program:
http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/files/
This will show you how to read from a file in your C# program:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ezwyzy7b.aspx

Since it seems the OP didn't leave any further comments, I am left wondering, would | not have sufficed? I guess it comes down to the object that is the "it" in "whenever it is called". If "it" refers to the C++ program, then Andy Mikula's answer is best. If "it" refers to the C# program, then I would suggest:
C:\>myCpluplus.exe | myCsharp.exe
and simply read from Console.In within myCsharp.exe.