Trying to send command line to a Dos App need Help

[mundell]

Hello everyone I need help trying to write a command line to a doss application is there a way I can send characters to a dos window? I have seen few API examples and alot of people saying you can't do it is there any easy way of doing this? Please help.

Robb

[BuggyProgrammer]

in VB.NET it is simple, but in VB5/6 it is really complicated. and it doesnt seem to work for XP

Private Const STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE = -11&
Private Const STD_INPUT_HANDLE = -10&
Private Const STD_ERROR_HANDLE = -12&
Private Const INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE = -1&
Private Const CONSOLE_FULLSCREEN = 1 ' fullscreen console
Private Const CONSOLE_FULLSCREEN_HARDWARE = 2 ' console owns the hardware
Private Type COORD
    x As Integer
    y As Integer
End Type
Private Type CONSOLE_FONT_INFO
    nFont As Long
    dwFontSize As COORD
End Type
Private Declare Function AllocConsole Lib "kernel32" () As Long
Private Declare Function FreeConsole Lib "kernel32" () As Long
Private Declare Function CloseHandle Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hObject As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetStdHandle Lib "kernel32" (ByVal nStdHandle As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetConsoleDisplayMode Lib "kernel32" (lpModeFlags As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetConsoleFontSize Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hConsoleOutput As Long, ByVal nFont As Long) As COORD
Private Declare Function GetCurrentConsoleFont Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hConsoleOutput As Long, ByVal bMaximumWindow As Long, lpConsoleCurrentFont As CONSOLE_FONT_INFO) As Long
Private Declare Function GetConsoleProcessList Lib "kernel32" (lpdwProcessList As Long, ByVal dwProcessCount As Long) As Long
Private hConsoleOut As Long, hConsoleIn As Long, hConsoleErr As Long
Private Sub Form_Load()
    'KPD-Team 2001
    'URL: [url]http://www.allapi.net/[/url]
    'E-Mail: [email][email protected][/email]
    'Create console
    Dim CurrentFont As CONSOLE_FONT_INFO
    Dim Ret As Long, ProcessList() As Long, Cnt As Long
    'create the console
    If AllocConsole() Then
        hConsoleOut = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE)
        If hConsoleOut = INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE Then MsgBox "Unable to get STDOUT"
        hConsoleIn = GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE)
        If hConsoleOut = INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE Then MsgBox "Unable to get STDIN"
    Else
        MsgBox "Couldn't allocate console"
    End If
    'Get the current display mode
    GetConsoleDisplayMode Ret
    If Ret = CONSOLE_FULLSCREEN Then
        MsgBox "Full-screen console. The console is in this mode as soon as the window is maximized. At this point, the transition to full-screen mode can still fail."
    ElseIf Ret = CONSOLE_FULLSCREEN_HARDWARE Then
        MsgBox "Full-screen console communicating directly with the video hardware. This mode is set after the console is in CONSOLE_FULLSCREEN mode to indicate that the transition to full-screen mode has completed."
    End If
    'Get the current console font
    GetCurrentConsoleFont hConsoleOut, 0, CurrentFont
    'Get the size of the current console font
    CurrentFont.dwFontSize = GetConsoleFontSize(hConsoleOut, CurrentFont.nFont)
    MsgBox "Current console font dimensions: " & CurrentFont.dwFontSize.x & "x" & CurrentFont.dwFontSize.y
    'Create a buffer of Longs
    ReDim ProcessList(0 To 9) As Long
    'Get the list of process IDs associated with this console
    Ret = GetConsoleProcessList(ProcessList(0), 10)
    'If the buffer was not large enough...
    If Ret > 9 Then
        '...create a larger buffer
        ReDim ProcessList(0 To Ret - 1) As Long
        'and retry
        Ret = GetConsoleProcessList(ProcessList(0), Ret + 1)
    End If
    'Show all associated processes in the debug window
    For Cnt = 0 To Ret - 1
        Debug.Print "Associated process: " + CStr(ProcessList(Cnt))
    Next Cnt
End Sub
Private Sub Form_Unload(Cancel As Integer)
    'Delete console
    CloseHandle hConsoleOut
    CloseHandle hConsoleIn
    FreeConsole
End Sub