System.Diagnostics

Stopwatch

This example shows how Stopwatch can be used to benchmark a block of code.

using System;            
using System.Diagnostics;
        
public class Benchmark : IDisposable
{
    private Stopwatch sw;

    public Benchmark()
    {
        sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        sw.Stop();
        Console.WriteLine(sw.Elapsed);
    }
}

public class Program
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        using (var bench = new Benchmark())
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Hello World");
        }
    }
}

Run shell commands

Send Command to CMD and Receive Output

This method allows a command to be sent to Cmd.exe, and returns the standard output (including standard error) as a string:

private static string SendCommand(string command)
{
    var cmdOut = string.Empty;
    
    var startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("cmd", command)
    {
        WorkingDirectory = @"C:\Windows\System32", // Directory to make the call from
        WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden,   // Hide the window
        UseShellExecute = false,                   // Do not use the OS shell to start the process
        CreateNoWindow = true,                     // Start the process in a new window 
        RedirectStandardOutput = true,             // This is required to get STDOUT
        RedirectStandardError = true               // This is required to get STDERR
    };

    var p = new Process {StartInfo = startInfo};

    p.Start();

    p.OutputDataReceived += (x, y) => cmdOut += y.Data;
    p.ErrorDataReceived += (x, y) => cmdOut += y.Data;
    p.BeginOutputReadLine();
    p.BeginErrorReadLine();
    p.WaitForExit();
    return cmdOut;
}

Usage

var servername = "SVR-01.domain.co.za";
var currentUsers = SendCommand($"/C QUERY USER /SERVER:{servername}")

Output

string currentUsers = “USERNAME SESSIONNAME ID STATE IDLE TIME LOGON TIME Joe.Bloggs ica-cgp#0 2 Active 24692+13:29 25/07/2016 07:50 Jim.McFlannegan ica-cgp#1 3 Active . 25/07/2016 08:33 Andy.McAnderson ica-cgp#2 4 Active . 25/07/2016 08:54 John.Smith ica-cgp#4 5 Active 14 25/07/2016 08:57 Bob.Bobbington ica-cgp#5 6 Active 24692+13:29 25/07/2016 09:05 Tim.Tom ica-cgp#6 7 Active . 25/07/2016 09:08 Bob.Joges ica-cgp#7 8 Active 24692+13:29 25/07/2016 09:13”

On some occasions, access to the server in question may be restricted to certain users. If you have the login credentials for this user, then it is possible to send queries with this method:

private static string SendCommand(string command)
{
    var cmdOut = string.Empty;
    
    var startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("cmd", command)
    {
        WorkingDirectory = @"C:\Windows\System32",
        WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden,    // This does not actually work in conjunction with "runas" - the console window will still appear!
        UseShellExecute = false,
        CreateNoWindow = true,
        RedirectStandardOutput = true, 
        RedirectStandardError = true,

        Verb = "runas",
        Domain = "doman1.co.za",
        UserName = "administrator",
        Password = GetPassword()
    };

    var p = new Process {StartInfo = startInfo};

    p.Start();

    p.OutputDataReceived += (x, y) => cmdOut += y.Data;
    p.ErrorDataReceived += (x, y) => cmdOut += y.Data;
    p.BeginOutputReadLine();
    p.BeginErrorReadLine();
    p.WaitForExit();
    return cmdOut;
}

Getting the password:

static SecureString GetPassword()
{
    var plainText = "password123";
    var ss = new SecureString();
    foreach (char c in plainText)
    {
        ss.AppendChar(c);
    }

    return ss;
}

Notes

Both of the above methods will return a concatenation of STDOUT and STDERR, as OutputDataReceived and ErrorDataReceived are both appending to the same variable - cmdOut.