How do I specify the exit code of a console application in NET

Question

I have a trivial console application in  NET  It s just a test part of a larger application  I d like to specify the  exit code  of my console application  How do I do this

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In addition to the answers covering the return int s    a plea for sanity  Please  please define your exit codes in an enum  with Flags if appropriate  It makes debugging and maintenance so much easier  and  as a bonus  you can easily print out the exit codes on your help screen - you do have one of those  right     enum ExitCode   int     Success   0    InvalidLogin   1    InvalidFilename   2    UnknownError   10    int Main string   args       return  int ExitCode Success

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As an update to Scott Munro s answer    In C  6 0 and VB NET 14 0  VS 2015   either Environment ExitCode or Environment Exit exitCode  is required to return an non-zero code from a console application   Changing the return type of Main has no effect  In F  4 0  VS 2015   the return value of the main entry point is respected

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Use ExitCode if your main has a void return signature  otherwise you need to  set  it by the value you return   Environment ExitCode Property     If the Main method returns void  you can use this property to set the exit code that will be returned to the calling environment  If Main does not return void  this property is ignored  The initial value of this property is zero

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The enumeration option is excellent however can be improved upon by multiplying the numbers as in   enum ExitCodes   int     Success   0    SignToolNotInPath   1    AssemblyDirectoryBad   2    PFXFilePathBad   4    PasswordMissing   8    SignFailed   16    UnknownError   32     In the case of multiple errors  adding the specific error numbers together will give you a unique number that will represent the combination of detected errors   For example  an errorlevel of 6 can only consist of errors 4 and 2  12 can only consist of errors 4 and 8  14 can only consist of 2  4 and 8 etc

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3 options   You can return it from Main if you declare your Main method to return int  You can call Environment Exit code   You can set the exit code using properties  Environment ExitCode   -1    This will be used if nothing else sets the return code or uses one of the other options above    Depending on your application  console  service  web app  etc  different methods can be used

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There are three methods that you can use to return an exit code from a console application    Modify the Main method in your application so that it returns an int instead of void  a function that returns an Integer instead of Sub in VB Net  and then return the exit code from that method  Set the Environment ExitCode property to the exit code  Note that method 1  takes precedence - if the Main method returns anything other than void  is a Sub in VB Net  then the value of this property will be ignored  Pass the exit code to the Environment Exit method  This will terminate the process immediately as opposed to the other two methods    An important standard that should be observed is that 0 represents  Success    On a related topic  consider using an enumeration to define the exit codes that your application is going to return  The FlagsAttribute will allow you to return a combination of codes   Also  ensure that your application is compiled as a  Console Application

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int code   2  Environment Exit  code

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My 2 cents   You can find the system error codes here  https   msdn microsoft com en-us library windows desktop ms681382 v vs 85  aspx  You will find the typical codes like 2 for  file not found  or 5 for  access denied    And when you stumble on an unknown code  you can use this command to find out what it means   net helpmsg decimal code   e g       net helpmsg 1   returns      Incorrect function

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System Environment ExitCode    http   msdn microsoft com en-us library system environment exitcode aspx

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Use this code  Environment Exit 0     use 0 as the int if you don t want to return anything

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If you are going to use the method suggested by David  you should also take a look at the  Flags  Attribute   This allows you to do bit wise operations on enums    Flags  enum ExitCodes   int     Success   0    SignToolNotInPath   1    AssemblyDirectoryBad   2    PFXFilePathBad   4    PasswordMissing   8    SignFailed   16    UnknownError   32     Then   ExitCodes SignFailed   ExitCodes UnknownError    would be 16   32

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Just an another way  public static class ApplicationExitCodes       public static readonly int Failure   1      public static readonly int Success   0

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Just return the appropiate code from main  int Main string   args          return 0    or exit code of your choice

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