Implementing Console Applications

A Windows CE shell may include a command line processor to provide console application support. While the command line processor does not include a graphical user interface, you can still use the standard C library I/O functions to read and write characters to and from the command line. The command line processor shell also supports I/O redirection by using less than (<) or greater than (>), as well as a double greater than (>>) to append. However, the command line processor shell does not currently support pipes. The following table shows the keystrokes that the Command Processor supports.

Although the command line processor does not support batch (.bat) files, you can enable batchlike support by creating a file with a list of commands and launching the command line processor with the following command line:

start cmd < cmd_list.bat

A Windows CE-based console application also has full access to the Win32 API. In fact, a console application can create windows, enter a message loop, and operate similar to a standard Windows–based application. The difference is that the first time you call one of the standard I/O C library functions, such as printf, Windows CE creates a console window that displays the result of that function.

Consoles are implemented in Windows CE using a console driver with the device name of CON. No more than ten console windows can be opened simultaneously.