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I'd like to know if it is possible in VB to write a function that calls a seperate exe on the local hard drive sending it data and arguments like a path, having it do its work, then return data back to the VB program to process. I'm sure this is a complicated process but I'm mainly looking for direction, and possibly examples on how to accomplish it.
Thanks.
It depends. If the other exe was made by you, you can use the Command function and have it do stuff and write the information to a text file. If not, than you'd have to maybe use a few API functions to get what the program does, may not be accurate though, not sure, depending on what you are wanting to do.
Well I can't say for sure at the moment exactly how the program expects to receive information and/or arguments nor how it returns them, but I know it normally does this interaction with a web server.
Try using winsock to do the comm.
Have one app be a server, the other be a client, and then make them send data to be processed thru winsock - easy enuf
Winsock huh? Interesting copncept. I'll give it a whirl.
If both programs are yours then I would suggest using external program as ActiveX EXE, you can then create an instance of your ActiveX EXE, pass paramters and get the result back..
The program I want to communicate with is not one of my own. It's an externally written and produced program. I'm kind of alluding to it's name I know, which would proably help a lot, but I'm kind of keeping that under tabs for the moment.
Surfice to say this: It normally runs with a web server running, either Apache, IIS or other. It can be run as a CGI executable or within the server process and I'd like to access it as if it were a CGI executable. Does that help any?
print to read STDIN - if it is to do with Apache - some kind of scripting etc. it may well write the results to STDIN
How do you read STDIN within VB?
Could STDIN -> STDOUT be accomplished with the WinSock control?