CSharpRepl is supported use to WPF ?

[chuongmep]

Feature Description

I have a question, whether it is available if we can use it same console to embed to WPF ?

[kindermannhubert]

It definitely can be hosted in WPF as an external process (as any other console application) by using WindowsFormsHost control and SetParent Win32 API:

If you'd like to communicate with a hosting application you would need to use some kind of interprocess communication (shared memory, WCF, ...).
If you'd like to directly access objects of the hosting app from CSharpRepl it's not possible right now.
Edit: See comment below.

[kindermannhubert]

Ok, after some thought I was able to hack together even the in-process hosting with the current version of CSharpRepl.
There's just one thing that has to be fixed in CSharpRepl and it is #59 (i made only hotfix for myself locally).

The result? Super cool 😀! The background of the hosting window is changed by code executed by CSharpRepl.

The trick is to instantiate CSharpRepl by reflection, give it reference to your hosting app and provide data you would like to use through some static variable (in the example it's MainWindow.Instance).

Bellow is a VERY EXPERIMENTAL (just hacked proof of concept) code of the example. It has a lot of rough edges around the hosting itself and I don't know how much effort it would take to make it flawless.

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows;

namespace CsharpReplWpfTest
{
    public partial class MainWindow : Window
    {
        public static MainWindow Instance;

        public MainWindow()
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            Instance = this;
        }

        private void Click1(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            var process = Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo("csharprepl"));

            IntPtr processWindowHandle = default;
            while (processWindowHandle == default)
            {
                processWindowHandle = process.MainWindowHandle;
            }

            HostConsole(processWindowHandle);
        }

        void Click2(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            AllocConsole();
            var consoleWindowHandle = GetConsoleWindow();
            HostConsole(consoleWindowHandle);

            new Thread(
                () =>
                {
                    const string CSharpReplDir = @"C:\Source\GitHub\CSharpRepl_waf\CSharpRepl\bin\Debug\net6.0";
                    var assemblies = Directory.EnumerateFiles(CSharpReplDir, "*.dll")
                        .Select(path => (Name: Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(path), Assembly: Assembly.LoadFrom(path)))
                        .ToDictionary(t => t.Name, t => t.Assembly);
                    var csharpReplMain = assemblies["CSharpRepl"].EntryPoint;
                    csharpReplMain.Invoke(null, new object[] { new string[] { "-r", Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location } });
                })
            { IsBackground = true }.Start();

            [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
            static extern IntPtr GetConsoleWindow();

            [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
            [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
            static extern bool AllocConsole();
        }

        void HostConsole(IntPtr consoleWindowHandle)
        {
            hostGrid.Width = 960;
            hostGrid.Height = 480;
            var consolePanel = new System.Windows.Forms.Panel() { Width = (int)hostGrid.Width, Height = (int)hostGrid.Height };
            windowsFormsHost.Child = consolePanel;

            const int GWL_STYLE = -16;
            const uint WS_VISIBLE = 0x10000000;
            SetParent(consoleWindowHandle, consolePanel.Handle);
            SetWindowLong(consoleWindowHandle, GWL_STYLE, WS_VISIBLE);
            MoveWindow(consoleWindowHandle, 0, 0, consolePanel.Width, consolePanel.Height, true);

            [DllImport("user32.dll")]
            static extern IntPtr SetParent(IntPtr hWndChild, IntPtr hWndNewParent);

            [DllImport("user32.dll")]
            static extern bool MoveWindow(IntPtr hwnd, int x, int y, int cx, int cy, bool repaint);

            [DllImport("user32.dll")]
            static extern int SetWindowLong(IntPtr hWnd, int nIndex, uint dwNewLong);
        }
    }
}

and the xaml:

<Window x:Class="CsharpReplWpfTest.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
        xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
        xmlns:local="clr-namespace:CsharpReplWpfTest"
        mc:Ignorable="d"
        Title="MainWindow" Height="650" Width="1100">
    <Grid>
        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition Height="44" />
            <RowDefinition Height="*" />
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>

        <StackPanel Grid.Row="0" Orientation="Horizontal">
            <Button Margin="6" Click="Click1">External process</Button>
            <Button Margin="6" Click="Click2">In-process</Button>
        </StackPanel>

        <Grid  x:Name="hostGrid" Grid.Row="1" Margin="10" Background="Transparent">
            <WindowsFormsHost x:Name="windowsFormsHost"/>
        </Grid>
    </Grid>
</Window>

[chuongmep]

Wow, Awesome, actually i want use CsharpRepl to replace for console in this project , i need load some assembly from outside and executed it in revit , whether we can?
You can see a project I develop in here https://github.com/chuongmep/RevitAddInManager
A new project console in branch dev-Console

[kindermannhubert]

Sorry, I don't understand what exactly you want to achieve.
But I think there is shown everything you would need in the example above. You can start CSharpRepl as an external process or instantiate it in-process (currently via reflection). Both cases are shown in the example above.
If you want to reference assembly and use, you could type in #r "path to assembly" or start CSharpRepl with "-r" argument (example above uses this approach).
When you need to pass data to CSharpRepl you could currently do it via static variables or some IPC.

Console hosting inside a WPF window (also shown above) is not necessary for this to work. The console window can be of course separate.

If there is still some problem for you, you have to be much more specific about it.

[chuongmep]

Thanks for about information that, I think I need to research a time in source to working with my ideal, your source code is very good, i will come back or reopen if i have any more questions, thank you for your enthusiasm.