.Net Tips – Find out if your app is running as a service

Yan Cui

I help clients go faster for less using serverless technologies.

When you are developing an application to run as a service it’s nice to be able to also run it as a console app so you can easily debug, etc. On the rare occasion you might even want to find out if your app is running in a console window at runtime so you can set the title of the console window to display some useful debugging information, for example.

After some quick digging around, I found a relevant question on StackOverflow and the answer here, all you need is a simple method like this:

   1: public bool IsService()

   2: {

   3:     var entryAssembly = Assembly.GetEntryAssembly();

   4:     var entryPoint = entryAssembly.EntryPoint;

   5:

   6:     // add a little error handling to make sure there is a BaseType

   7:     return

   8:         entryPoint.ReflectedType.BaseType != null &&

   9:         entryPoint.ReflectedType.BaseType.FullName == "System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase";

  10: }

Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

  1. Production-Ready Serverless: Join 20+ AWS Heroes & Community Builders and 1000+ other students in levelling up your serverless game. This is your one-stop shop to level up your serverless skills quickly.
  2. Do you want to know how to test serverless architectures with a fast dev & test loop? Check out my latest course, Testing Serverless Architectures and learn the smart way to test serverless.
  3. I help clients launch product ideas, improve their development processes and upskill their teams. If you’d like to work together, then let’s get in touch.

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