Using Sys Exec to run an exe AND make it process a file.

[ATE Man]

Apologies for being thick! I would be very grateful if someone could assist me with this.

I have a DOS program called sendwrap.exe that (a) I want to run & (b) I also want to pass it a parameter that is a filename for it to process

I can get this to work using the following sequence of manual actions, what I need to know is how this sequence below translates to what i should wire to command line & standard input terminals of the sys exec vi

1. Open Dos Window
2. Type "CD C:\temp" :to change directory that containing sendwrap.exe program & eric.bin file to be processed
3. Type "sendwrap eric.bin" :to invooke sendwrap.exe to process "eric.bin" file.

Thanks in advance for your help..

[pincpanter]

I think it's better to write a small batch file, like:

MYJOB.BAT
c:
cd \temp
sendwrap %1

then execute the batch with eric.bin parameter on the command line:

MYJOB eric.bin


Paolo

[pincpanter]

I think it's better to write a small batch file, like:

MYJOB.BAT
c:
cd \temp
sendwrap %1

then execute the batch with eric.bin parameter on the command line:

MYJOB eric.bin

Sorry I accidentally duplicated my post

Paolo

Message Edited by pincpanter on 05-15-2006 12:24 PM

[ATE Man]

I have tried this, creating the batch file "myjob.bat" as you specify and then wiring  "myjob eric.bin" to the command line input but i receive an error 2

I also tried this with the working directory input of the vi as "C:\temp" and again with the directory my vi is in but to no avail..

[pincpanter]

Probably the batch is not found. Try including the full path:

c:\mypath\myjob eric.bin

Paolo

[ATE Man]

I have tried the following:

"C:\temp\myjob eric.bin"  - This still returns error 2

"C:\temp\myjob.bat eric.bin - This displays an empty dos box with a cursor at the top but no prompt

Any ideas?

Thankyou

[pincpanter]

It works for me with notepad as application.
Have you tested the bat "by hand", i.e. opening a dos box (not in c:\temp) and typing c:\temp\myjob.bat eric.bin ?
Does it work this way?

Paolo

[ATE Man]

Thanks paolo i have tweaked what i am doing and now it works perfectly!!

This has given rise to another question I would be most grateful if someone could answer.

When my .exe runs some text appears in the dos window showing progress of a file download in %. This text is updated on a single line as the download progresses.

1) Is there any way in which you can use sys exec.vi to repeatedly read the text output as it chnages?What i am trying to do is parse the text % value shown in the DOS box and use it to display progress on a Labview indictor progress bar.

Any tips to reading and parsing the DOS box text output would be very useful.

Thanks

Tristan

[pincpanter]

There are a lot of threads on this forums treating this subject. You can find them, for example, searching "standard output". One is http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&message.id=57263&query.id=36730#M57263
The short answer is you can't do it.
What you can try to do is:

a) redirect the DOS program output this way:    sendwrap eric.bin > out.txt
b) periodically read this out.txt
c) from the file content, extract the last full line (in your case, lines are probably separated by a simple CR and not CR+LF)

a) and b) are not guaranteed to work; my main doubt is about reading out.txt during its update.
c) also requires some care, in case you read incomplete "lines"

An alternative approach would be to estimate the total time from the file size and outputting a time-based progress bar.

Paolo