Check if an IO stream is blocked in C#

Question

In C#, one can run a process and interact with it using its stdin and stdout.

Interactive programs however sometimes block waiting for input. The stream is not closed, and when calling the ReadLine method, the method blocks until more data becomes available.

Is there a way to verify if there is currently still data available on the stdin without blocking (if no more data is available, the program must feed the stdin of the process)...

Code example:

this.process = new Process ();
this.process.StartInfo.FileName = "foo";
this.process.StartInfo.Arguments = "--nowarnings -i";
this.process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
this.process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
this.process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
this.process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
this.process.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
this.process.Start ();
this.stdin = this.process.StandardInput;
this.stdout = this.process.StandardOutput;
this.stdin.WriteLine ("command1");
while (!stdout.EndOfStream) {
    Console.WriteLine (stdout.ReadLine ());
}
this.stdin.WriteLine ("command2");

Answer 1

You can use Console.KeyAvailable property to check if there is a symbol available in the input stream. However you should use Console.ReadKey method in conjunction with KeyAvailable because ReadLine will block until the stdin receives newline sequence or end-of-file.