1. system() function
- Posted by Brian Broker <bkb at CNW.COM>
Dec 17, 1999
-
Last edited Dec 18, 1999
I know this has been brought up before but couldn't find a solution. I'd
like to capture output of a DOS program without sending the output to a
file.
Is there a way to do this? (a library with a system() function that
captures the output and lets you assign it to a sequence variable)
Are there plans on adding this functionality to the next release of
Euphoria?
Thanks,
Brian
2. Re: system() function
- Posted by Robert Craig <rds at ATTCANADA.NET>
Dec 17, 1999
-
Last edited Dec 18, 1999
Brian Broker writes:
> I know this has been brought up before but couldn't find
> a solution. I'd like to capture output of a DOS program
> without sending the output to a file.
> Is there a way to do this? (a library with a system() function
> that captures the output and lets you assign it to a
> sequence variable)
> Are there plans on adding this functionality to the next
> release of Euphoria?
As you are probably aware, you can already say things like:
system("myprog > myoutput", 2)
to get the output of "myprog" into a file called "myoutput".
I guess what you want is to get the output back as a sequence
of characters, or sequence of lines of characters, without
ever creating a temporary file.
I don't know of anything special that I can do in the interpreter
to capture the output without creating a file. I don't plan to add
a library routine for this, but here's something I just wrote.
It uses a temporary file. I tested it lightly.
function command_output(sequence command)
-- return the output of a command
-- as a sequence of characters
integer fn, c
sequence result
system(command & " > cmdtemp.dat", 2)
result = ""
fn = open("cmdtemp.dat", "r")
if fn = -1 then
return result
end if
while 1 do
c = getc(fn)
if c = -1 then
exit
end if
result = append(result, c)
end while
close(fn)
system("del cmdtemp.dat", 2)
return result
end function
-- TEST
sequence r
r = command_output("dir *.ex")
puts(1, r)
Regards,
Rob Craig
Rapid Deployment Software
http://www.RapidEuphoria.com
3. Re: system() function
----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Broker <bkb at CNW.COM>
To: <EUPHORIA at LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU>
Sent: Friday, December 17, 1999 8:52 PM
Subject: system() function
> I know this has been brought up before but couldn't find a solution. I'd
> like to capture output of a DOS program without sending the output to a
> file.
>
> Is there a way to do this? (a library with a system() function that
> captures the output and lets you assign it to a sequence variable)
DR-DOS does this between running programs, like windoze handles msgs between
apps. Linux prolly does it better. In MS-dos, you can use the CommandTail in
the running program's PSP to store under 128 bytes,, but it's destroyed when
the program terminates. You could tie up a block of memory with EMS calls,
store as much data as you have XMS RAM for, and access it from any running
program or tsr. If you want the simple way tho, use an xms ramdrive of the
smallest size you need, and store your temp data there,, ram drives are
1000x faster than a harddrive, not counting write cacheing by the hd or hd
controller itself. If you are into fancy coding that most people hate, stuff
the new data (under a few bytes) into the keybd buffer, if you launch the
new app as a dos shelled app, the new app can use the buffer as keybd input.
You could also launch a TSR, never call it, and use it's reserved code area
as data storage for real programs. Note that most of these tricks work only
in real mode, `cause you may not have the access to the memory locations in
32bit mode,, so your mileage may vary. I'd go with the xms ram drive myself,
if you plan on staying with dos or windoze, cause it's generally fast
enough, has tons of memory,, and it's 2am at the moment, and i can't think
of more to say.
Kat,
zzzzzzzzzzz
4. Re: system() function
Thank you Robert and Kat for your suggestions but perhaps I should be more
specific. I would like to write a Windows GUI for a DOS command-line
program. Writing to, and reading from a file seems rather inefficient in
this case. Is there an easy way to redirect the output from the console to
my GUI without going via disk or user intervention (like manually copying
from the console window)? Perhaps by directing the output to the clipboard
where I can easily grab it or maybe even more direct by just copying info
from the console?
Has anybody done something like this before?
Thanks,
Brian
5. Re: system() function
----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Broker <bkb at CNW.COM>
To: <EUPHORIA at LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, December 18, 1999 4:14 AM
Subject: Re: system() function
> Thank you Robert and Kat for your suggestions but perhaps I should be more
> specific. I would like to write a Windows GUI for a DOS command-line
> program. Writing to, and reading from a file seems rather inefficient in
> this case. Is there an easy way to redirect the output from the console
to
> my GUI without going via disk or user intervention (like manually copying
> from the console window)? Perhaps by directing the output to the
clipboard
> where I can easily grab it or maybe even more direct by just copying info
> from the console?
>
> Has anybody done something like this before?
Oh, yeas,, your windoze Eu code can have a Win95 gui window open using
win32lib calls, and a dos window open using Eu's dos commands like print()
or puts(), i was doing this last nite. The windoze window gave me connection
status while the dos window printed other things for debugging. I was too
lazy to use the win32lib call when puts() did the job i needed.
Kat
6. Re: system() function
On Sat, 18 Dec 1999 05:14:16 -0500, Brian Broker <bkb at CNW.COM> wrote:
>from the console window)? Perhaps by directing the output to the clipboard
>where I can easily grab it or maybe even more direct by just copying info
>from the console?
>
>Has anybody done something like this before?
>Thanks,
>Brian
Brian :
Take a look at Carl white's editor. It uses code to write and read
to the windows clipboard from dos
Bernie
