Having the output of a console application in Visual Studio instead of the console

Question

When doing a console application in Java with Eclipse  I see the output being put in a text box in the IDE itself  instead of having a console popping up like in Visual Studio  This comes in handy  as even after the program has exited  I can still make good use of the text that was written in it  as it doesn t get erased until I run it again  Is it possible to achieve anything like that with Visual Studio  I know that instead of doing  System Console WriteLine str     I can do  System Diagnostics Debug WriteLine str     but it is not quite the same thing  as you get a lot of  junk  in the Output window  as all the loaded symbols and such   Even better  is it possible to have everything done in the IDE itself  when you run your application  instead of having the console running

User · Answer

Use System Diagnostics Trace  Depending on what listeners you attach  trace output can go to the debug window  the console  a file  database  or all at once   The possibilities are literally endless  as implementing your own TraceListener is extremely simple

User · Answer

Instead  you can collect the output in a test result   You can t supply input  but you can easily provide several tests with different command line arguments  each test collecting the output   If your goal is debugging  this is a low effort way of offering a repeatable debugging scenario   namespace Commandline Test       using Microsoft VisualStudio TestTools UnitTesting        TestClass      public class CommandlineTests                TestMethod          public void RunNoArguments                         Commandline Program Main new string 0

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A simple solution that works for me  to work with console ability ReadKey  String with Format and arg etc  and to see and save the output  I write TextWriter that write to Console and to Trace and replace the Console Out with it  if you use  Dialog - gt  Debugging - gt  Check the  quot Redirect All Output Window Text to the Immediate Window quot  you get it in the Immediate Window and pretty clean  my code  in start of my code  Console SetOut new TextHelper      and the class  public class TextHelper   TextWriter       TextWriter console       public TextHelper             console   Console Out             public override Encoding Encoding   gt  this console Encoding       public override void WriteLine string format  params object   arg                string s   string Format format  arg           WriteLine s              public override void Write object value                console Write value           System Diagnostics Trace Write value              public override void WriteLine object value                Write value           Write  quot  n quot               public override void WriteLine string value                console WriteLine value           System Diagnostics Trace WriteLine value            Note  I override just what I needed so if you write other types you should override more

User · Answer

It s time to check the latest release s for Visual Studio  folks  The most suggested solution that did not work for some of you before might work now  In Visual Studio 2017  Release Version 15 4 2 and above   going to Tools  gt  Options  gt  Debugging  gt  General  gt   Check Box  Redirect all Output Window text to Immediate Window has worked for me  Few Notes   To see the Immediate Window  make sure that you are in Debugging mode  There should now be 3 other debugging tools available at your disposal  namely  Call Stack  Breakpoints  and Command Window  as shown below    Best wishes

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If you need output from Console WriteLine  and the  Redirect All Output Window Text to the Immediate Window does not function and you need to know the output of Tests from the Integrated Test Explorer  using NUnit Framework our problem is already solved at VS 2017   Example taken from C  In Depth by Jon Skeet   This produce this output at Text Explorer    When we click on Blue Output  under Elapsed Time  at right  and it produces this    Standard Output is our desired Output  produced by Console WriteLine   It functions for Console and for Windows Form Applications at VS 2017  but only for Output generated for Test Explorer at Debug or Run  anyway  this is my main need of Console WriteLine output

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I know this is just another answer  but I thought I d write something down for the new Web Developers  who might get confused about the  Change to a Windows Application  part  because I think by default an MVC application in Visual Studio 2013 defaults to an Output Type of Class Library    My Web Application by default is set as an output type of  Class Library   You don t have to change that  All I had to do was follow the suggestions of going to Tools   Options   Debugging   Redirect all Output Window text to the Immediate Window  I then used the System Diagnostics Trace suggestion by Joel Coehoorn above

User · Answer

regarding System Diagnostics Debug producing a lot of  junk  in the Output window  You can turn that off by right clicking in the output window  E g  there s an item  Module Load Messages  which you want to disable and an item  Program Output  which you want to keep

User · Answer

You have three possibilities to do this  but it s not trivial  The main idea of all IDEs is that all of them are the parents of the child  debug  processes  In this case  it is possible to manipulate with standard input  output and error handler  So IDEs start child applications and redirect out into the internal output window  I know about one more possibility  but it will come in future   You could implement your own debug engine for Visual Studio  Debug Engine control starting and debugging for application  Examples for this you could find how to do this on docs microsoft com  Visual Studio Debug engine  Redirect form application using duplication of std handler for c   or use Console SetOut TextWriter  for c    If you need to print into the output window you need to use Visual Studio extension SDK  Example of the second variant you could find on Github    Start application that uses  System Diagnostics Debug WriteLine  for printing into output  and than it will start child application  On starting a child  you need to redirect stdout into parent with pipes  You could find an example on MSDN  But I think this is not the best way

User · Answer

In the Tools -  Visual Studio Options Dialog -  Debugging -   Check the  Redirect All Output Window Text to the Immediate Window

User · Answer

In the Visual Studio Options Dialog -  Debugging -  Check the  Redirect All Output Window Text to the Immediate Window   Then go to your project settings and change the type from  Console Application  to  Windows Application   At that point Visual Studio does not open up a console window anymore  and the output is redirected to the Output window in Visual Studio  However  you cannot do anything  creative   like requesting key or text input  or clearing the console - you ll get runtime exceptions

User · Answer

You could create a wrapper application that you run instead of directly running your real app   The wrapper application can listen to stdout and redirect everything to Trace   Then change the run settings to launch your wrapper and pass in the path to the real app to run   You could also have the wrapper auto-attach the debugger to the new process if a debugger is attached to the wrapper

[c#] Having the output of a console application in Visual Studio instead of the console

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