get data from DOS exe

[ciler]

Hello,

Can anybody tell me how I could obtain in my VB app what is displayed on the command window by a command line exe.

The fact is that I am trying to make a GUI for a command line app for my little bro... and I actually need to display some infos in my app since he will not be able to find them out among the lot of lines printed by the dos tool.

I plan to to use shell() to run the DOS exe.

Thanks for your help

[Matthew Gates]

Here's an example:

Private Sub Form_Load()
    Shell "command.com /c Dir /b c:\windows > c:\cListing.txt", 0
End Sub

[gwdash]

you can dump the results of the commands into a file:

Shell("netstat > log.txt", vbNormalFocus)

and then read in the file in vb:

Dim Buffer As String
Dim Temp As String
 
Open "log.txt" For Input As #1
 
Do Until EOF(1)
     Input #1, Temp
     Buffer = Buffer & Temp
Loop

and then kill the file:

Kill "log.txt"

hope this helps

[Joacim Andersson]

You can redirect the output to a file and then parse that file for the information you need.
Unfortunatly you can't simply use the > character from Windows to redirect to file so the solution is to have your app create a BAT file and shell that.

Public Sub ShellIt(ByVal AppToShell As String, ByVal RedirectTo As String)
    Dim hFile As Integer
    Dim sBatFile As String

    sBatFile = Environ("Temp")
    sBatFile = sBatFile & IIf(Right$(sBatFile, 1) <> "\", "\tmpBat.Bat", "tmpBat.Bat")
    hFile = FreeFile
    Open sBatFile For Output As #hFile
    Print #hFile, "@" & AppToShell & " >" & RedirectTo
    Close #hFile
    Shell sBatFile, vbHide
End Sub

You call the above procedure like this:

ShellIt "c:\TheDosApp.exe", "c:\Output.txt"

After that simply parse the Output.txt file and show whatever information you want from it.

Best regards

[ciler]

3 answers in less than an hour !
that's that fast !

thank you very much !

Matthew Gates> can you explain me what is this ,0 at the end of
Shell "command.com /c Dir /b c:\windows > c:\cListing.txt", 0
I thought it was just shell "myapp.exe"
And, as Iam a newbie at DOS, could you explain me the details of the command line ?

[~~~]

Ok.

You've got a dos program called myapp.exe that displays lots of info when run.

To get that info you have to redirect the text to a file. This is done by running the program as "myapp.exe > c:\somefile.txt". This can be done using the Shell statement as:

Shell "c:\myapp.exe > c:\somefile.txt"

After this , read the file c:\somefile.txt into your program with some code like this :

dim strText as string
Open "c:\somefile.txt" for input as #1
strtext = input(1,lof(1))
close #1

That's it. You now have all the text displayed by the Dos program in a variable.

[Matthew Gates]

Originally posted by ciler
3 answers in less than an hour !
that's that fast !

thank you very much !

Matthew Gates> can you explain me what is this ,0 at the end of
Shell "command.com /c Dir /b c:\windows > c:\cListing.txt", 0
I thought it was just shell "myapp.exe"
And, as Iam a newbie at DOS, could you explain me the details of the command line ?

The 0 is to hide the DOS window. It can be 0 or vbHide.
The Shell function can be used to launch COM and BAT files as well.

Command.com <-MS-DOS
/c <- Executes the specified command and returns.
Dir <-specifies files and folders in a directory
/b <-uses bare format (no heading or summary)
> <-Output to file
c:\cListing.txt <-file the information was written to
, 0 <-vbHide - hides the MS-DOS window, you can change this to 1 or vbNormalFocus if you wish to see the DOS Window.

[ciler]

I tried to use the > dos command, it creates a text file, but the file is empty
(either in dos mode or with VB and shell)

Here is my code :
c:\TestDir\normalize.exe -o test.wav jenina.wav > log.txt

(syntax for normalize is : normalize -o <file> input-file)

I can't figure what I did wrong ?
Thanks for any help

[~~~]

Does the program prompt you to enter any information when run normally ?

[ciler]

Yep, now it works !

And btw I know that it is useless trying to read the file while the process (here normalize) is still working...

Thank you for your help !