Stop using the Process class for CLI interactions in .NET

Hello everybody I'm Nick and in this video I will show you how you can control your machine's CLI in an elegant way in C#. .NET's built in Process class is a total mess and really hard to work with so we will be using a Nuget package called CliWrap, to fix all of those problems and add some very nice features on top of it.

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#csharp #dotnet

[riplee]

Being a .NET developer with over 20 years of experience, I am still getting awed over learning new things. Nick does such a great job stretching my knowledge on topics that really matter to my day-to-day work. Nick's examples are spot on and his ramping up from a basic "hello world" to the more advanced is perfect. Excellent topic and something I'll definitely be using.

[capsey_]

C# devs: This is cursed, I don't like overloaded operators for gimmicks like this
C++ devs with printing using bit-shift operator: Haha, classic

[deeplerg]

*Summary*

Problem of the video: _Process_ is hard to work with for executing commands in CLI
Proposed solution: use a library called CliWrap (link in desc)

Most important: 1 -> 2 -> 6 -> 5 -> 9 -> 12
Cool stuff: 5, 9, 12

1) Sample code - 3:08
2) _Execute_ can't do stdout/stdin, _ExecuteBufferedAsync_ can - 4:11

3) CliWarp supports parameters, so no need to escape strings - 5:37
4) You can use a builder instead of an array - 6:02

5) CLI events - 7:08
6) Simpler stdout - 10:18
7) Even simpler with an operator - 11:08
8) The *|* operator - 11:24

9) _CancellationToken_ - 12:10

FFmpeg example, Nick doesn't run the code:
10) With the *|* operator -13:12
11) Same but looks more C# - 13:48
12) Process-to-process piping - 14:09, notice the "|" operator from 7) and 8)

[matthewsheeran]

Finally I am ahead of the legendary Nick Chapsas on this one as I have been using it for years and even sucked in the source code so I could make a change I needed to it. Take that Nick: booyeah!! ;-)

[derangedftw]

Been using this dream-like library for maybe 4 years now? It has made my wrapped CLIs look clean and understand easily for new developers. So happy you covered this gem.

[kacpertonia]

What a timing! I've started using Process in one of my projects just this week, and this library looks quite interesting.

[lyrion]

I had and hated to have to deal with the Process class, flags that you have to set correctly to get process output via events... This looks so much better.

[BrucyCenteio]

Man i build 5 years ago, an entire app on top of CMD, if this library was available, I would build a more stable code and probable this app will still run. Men I am so happy

[emmanueladebiyi]

Just used this library on a project after discovering it on your channel a while back. It's a joy to use indeed!

[Movies]

Thanks for another great video. I discovered CliWrap about 3 years ago and its been my go-to library any time I need to shell out from a process to call another executable. Especially when I need to process the stdout in a specific way. It has many many options for handling stdout.

[neppe]

Seems very useful. It would've been nice if you had shown how the equivalent is done using Process class, even just going over pre-written code.

[danielsun]

OH MY GOD I'm so happy that you make a video for this is for me THE package of 2022!!!!11!!!!

[ryan-heath]

I was skeptical about "is null" syntax, because it didn't felt C# like.
But now I prefer it above "== null" 😆

The cliwrap | looks great, just let it grow on you.

[vekzdran]

The | override is sick! Tyrrrz is awesome!

[docbrown]

Looks real nice. I'm gonna give it a shot the next time I'll need to use Process

[dominicc]

That is pretty neat, wish I'd known about it last time I used the Process class. I didn't even think to look for a package for it.

[deadlydog]

Great video. This looks way easier to use than the Process class. I can't believe I didn't know about it sooner. And that pipe syntax is so sweet; looks like writing PowerShell in C#, and is very intuitive if you've ever written PowerShell. Very cool.

[henry-js]

I've been meaning to try CliWrap for months now. Thanks for this

[somerandomusernamenobodyhas]

This library looks incredibly powerful. Didn't know this existed and have needed something like this several times in my projects. Thanks for sharing!

[xavhow]

Always learning something new with Nick, great vid!