Technology to send “real-time” console output to the client's browser

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I have a .NET console application that I want to start on the server of an ASP.NET MVC application. It produces output continuously for a certain time and I want to intercept this output and show it to the client in his browser window.

From another console application, I can do it like this:

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
  Process process = new Process();
  process.StartInfo.FileName = "RandomOutputCreator.exe";
  process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
  process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
  process.OutputDataReceived += (sender, e) =>
  {
    Console.WriteLine(e.Data);
  };

  process.Start();
  process.BeginOutputReadLine();

  Console.ReadKey();
}

The problem is that in the MVC application, I can't push the data I read to the client, but rather rely on requests to the controller to get my data. Something like WebSockets could maybe help me here, but I'm new to this kind of thing and wonder if there might be a "built-in" way to accomplish this.

Then there's the Web API thing. Could this be of use perhaps, since it seems to go well with MVC?

(Since I do not know what a fitting technology might be, please excuse the lack of tags and feel free to fill some in that you think fit).