Question New way to interact with cmd though windows forms

[stickysolutionz]

I wrote a simple application to interface with Storj.io. Stroj is a decentralized cloud storage concept. It is driven by libstorj, a simple CLI. I wrote a gui to perform simple tasks like, list buckets, list files, upload download and delete. The code below is working 100%, that was until the other day, libstorj came out with a new binary, and this binary will not accept the method below. Let me focus where this is failing. with the old binary I could simply

MyProcess.StandardInput.WriteLine(InputTextBox.Text)
MyProcess.StandardInput.WriteLine(PWTextBox.Text)
MyProcess.StandardInput.Flush()

This would first launch a predetermined command defined in inputtextbox.text to console and then supply the password, which is the next prompt. So in reality line 1 would execute "storj.exe list-buckets" - this command would then ask for a password, the following line would satisfy that request "MyProcess.StandardInput.WriteLine(PWTextBox.Text)" This all went to sh1t with the new binary. Now what happens is, the console doesn't receive the password properly. basically it executes "storj.exe list-buckets" but the pw doesn't get entered, a return seems to be executed and then MyProcess.StandardInput.WriteLine(PWTextBox.Text) is displayed as a command itself rather than being inserted as the pw. Jesus, reading this back is confusing as hell, I hope someone can make sense of this.

My source, and a landing page on general use can be found at http://my.uselessinter.net/projects/storjgui/

If someone, can give me an idea on how else I can interact with cmd through windows forms that would be DOPE!!!

Thanks in advance


Heres my complete form1 source.

Public Class Form1


    Private WithEvents MyProcess As Process
    Private Delegate Sub AppendOutputTextDelegate(ByVal text As String)

    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
        Me.AcceptButton = ListBucketsButton
        MyProcess = New Process
        With MyProcess.StartInfo
            .FileName = "CMD.EXE"
            .UseShellExecute = False
            .CreateNoWindow = True
            .RedirectStandardInput = True
            .RedirectStandardOutput = True
            .RedirectStandardError = True
        End With
        MyProcess.Start()
        MyProcess.BeginErrorReadLine()
        MyProcess.BeginOutputReadLine()
        AppendOutputText("Process Started at: " & MyProcess.StartTime.ToString)
    End Sub
    Private Sub Form1_FormClosing(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.FormClosingEventArgs) Handles Me.FormClosing
        MyProcess.StandardInput.WriteLine("EXIT") 'send an EXIT command to the Command Prompt
        MyProcess.StandardInput.Flush()
        MyProcess.Close()
    End Sub
    Private Sub MyProcess_ErrorDataReceived(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Diagnostics.DataReceivedEventArgs) Handles MyProcess.ErrorDataReceived
        AppendOutputText(vbCrLf & "Error: " & e.Data)
    End Sub
    Private Sub MyProcess_OutputDataReceived(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Diagnostics.DataReceivedEventArgs) Handles MyProcess.OutputDataReceived
        AppendOutputText(vbCrLf & e.Data)
    End Sub
    Private Sub ExecuteButton_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles ListBucketsButton.Click
        If PWTextBox.Text = "" Then
            MsgBox("Enter your password first")
        Else
            OutputTextBox.Text = ""
            MyProcess.StandardInput.WriteLine(InputTextBox.Text)
            MyProcess.StandardInput.WriteLine(PWTextBox.Text)
            MyProcess.StandardInput.Flush()
        End If
    End Sub
    Private Sub AppendOutputText(ByVal text As String)
        If OutputTextBox.InvokeRequired Then
            Dim myDelegate As New AppendOutputTextDelegate(AddressOf AppendOutputText)
            Me.Invoke(myDelegate, text)
        Else
            OutputTextBox.AppendText(text)
        End If
    End Sub

    Private Sub ImportKeysToolStripMenuItem_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles ImportKeysToolStripMenuItem.Click
        Shell("storj import-keys", vbNormalFocus)
    End Sub
    Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs)
        Me.Close()
    End Sub
    Private Sub Button1_Click_1(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        If BucketIDTextBox.Text = "" Then
            MsgBox("you must enter Bucket ID first")
        ElseIf UL2STextBox.Text = "" Then
            MsgBox("Use the browse button to find a file first. ...It's like you're not even trying :(")
        Else
            Shell("storj upload-file " & BucketIDTextBox.Text & " """ & UL2STextBox.Text & """", vbNormalFocus)
        End If
        UL2STextBox.Text = ""
    End Sub
    Private Sub Button2_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles ListFilesButton.Click
        If BucketIDTextBox.Text = "" Then
            MsgBox("you must enter Bucket ID first")
        Else
            OutputTextBox.Text = ""
            MyProcess.StandardInput.WriteLine(ListFIlesTextBox.Text & BucketIDTextBox.Text)
            MyProcess.StandardInput.WriteLine(PWTextBox.Text)
            MyProcess.StandardInput.Flush()
        End If
    End Sub
    Private Sub Button3_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button3.Click
        If BucketIDTextBox.Text = "" Then
            MsgBox("you must enter Bucket ID first")
        ElseIf FileIDTextBox.Text = "" Then
            MsgBox("Enter File ID")
        ElseIf DL2STextBox.Text = "" Then
            MsgBox("For Christ's sake, where do you want to save it???")
        Else
            Shell("storj download-file " & BucketIDTextBox.Text & " " & FileIDTextBox.Text & " """ & DL2STextBox.Text & """", vbNormalFocus)
        End If
        DL2STextBox.Text = ""
        FileIDTextBox.Text = ""
    End Sub
    Private Sub Button4_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button4.Click
        If FileIDTextBox.Text = "" Then
            MsgBox("you must enter File ID first")
        Else
            Shell("storj remove-file " & BucketIDTextBox.Text & " " & FileIDTextBox.Text & "", vbNormalFocus)
        End If
        FileIDTextBox.Text = ""
    End Sub
    Private Sub BrowseButton_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles BrowseButton.Click
        If OpenFileDialog1.ShowDialog = Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK Then
            UL2STextBox.Text = OpenFileDialog1.FileName
        End If
    End Sub
    Private Sub CreateNewBucketToolStripMenuItem_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles CreateNewBucketToolStripMenuItem.Click
        Form2.Show()
    End Sub
End Class

 

[cjard]

And what does the new binary do when you run it in a DOS prompt, manually?

 

[JuggaloBrotha]

That's a lot of hard to read (unformatted) code, but from what I can see you're simply redirecting the standard output (and standard input in your case) which is the common way of reading console app's output. How is your way any different?

 

[stickysolutionz]

It functions properly. I cant understand why the hell its not working. That's why I'm thinking maybe a different approach, but I'm out of ideas.

 

[stickysolutionz]

My bad on the formatting, it can be read easier and the source downloaded from http://my.uselessinter.net/projects/storjgui/

 

[JuggaloBrotha]

My bad on the formatting, it can be read easier and the source downloaded from http://my.uselessinter.net/projects/storjgui/

Or if you wrap your code with an [xcode=vb.net]code here[/xcode] tags, I've edited your post already.

 

[cjard]

It may be that the new binary isn't reading from std in in quite the same way; perhaps you could try upgrading your code so that it first reads from std out; checks that the app is asking for a username, writes the username to std in, reads from std out again (password this time); then writes to std in...

Or put some sleeps in your app

I.e. More accurately represent what a user would do rather than bashing data to std in as fast as possible