How to create a program to execute shell command in Windows? - file

I am trying to execute a shell command or batch file in LiveCode, however, for reasons unknown, it is not working. I would like to use another intermediate program to execute the batch file that records the output to a text file and then read that output with LiveCode as a workaround. What is a simple way to create an executable that can process a batch file?
There is not really any relevant code to share other than
put "test.bat" into tCommand
put shell (tCommand) into fld "output"

The following script works in LiveCode 6.7.6:
set the hideConsoleWindows to true
put shell("C:\test.bat")
My bat file contains
#echo off
echo 'test'
pause
and the value returned by shell() is
'test'
Press any key to continue . . .
The last character of the value returned is a linefeed.
Perhaps you should try to reproduce this simple test.

Related

How to pass commands in a text file to an EXE running through the command line with batch?

I have a text file with lots of commands in it and I want to sent those commands to a software called thermocal. It is a console application. I found the command below, but it doesn't work for me.
Do I need to put this .exe file in the same folder of the batch file to make it work or any thing else?
type somefile.txt | Thermocal.exe
Batch scripts can be considered as a collection of lines you could also type in a command line prompt one after another. With respect to this it might be helpful for you, to play with cmd in order to get a feeling for what is happening.
About starting thermocal: Assuming thermocal is not part of PATH then the batch file either needs to change the current directory to the one with termocal.exe. Alternatively you might be able to call thermocal.exe with adding a path like C:\ProgramFiles\Thermocal\thermocal.exe . Play with cmd to find out, what works and what doesn't
When you are able to start thermocal from the command line prompt window, you can start experimenting with the call. You will probably end of with something like this in your command line window:
C:\ProgramFiles\Thermocal> thermocal argument1 argument 2
If this works, you can start with batch programming :)
Assuming your arguments are stored in somefile.txt like this:
argument1 argument 2
TYPE does nothing more than printing a file:
TYPE somefile.txt
Now you need to use the result of the output as command line arguments:
for /f %%i in ('type somefile.txt') do (thermocal.exe %%i)

Why won't a batch file run when being called from within another batch file?

I have a batch file that first creates another batch file containing a ClearCase cleartool command and second, runs it:
ECHO cleartool lsactivity -long "%ACTIVITY%"^>"%OUTPUTFILE%">FILETORUN.bat
CALL FILETORUN.bat
When running the batch, FILETORUN.bat is generated with the correct format, but the CALL to it is completely ignored.
If I ECHO output after the CALL to a log file, I can see that the script just skips over it.
What could it be?
I have tried removing CALL but it makes no difference.
EDIT: SOLUTION
Thank you all for the input. I found the problem. Before the write to batch and batch call in the script there was a command that read information into a variable from a file:
SET /p FILETODELETE=<rmname_%CLEARCASE_USER%.tmp
It reads only the first line. For some reason this created a conflict with temporary batch file, and I have no idea why. I used a different solution for reading the first line from a file and the conflict doesn't happen anymore:
(set FILETODELETE=)
for /f "delims=" %%q in (rmname_%CLEARCASE_USER%.tmp) do if not defined FILETODELETE set FILETODELETE=%%q
If anyone can shed some light it would be great!
SET /P waits for user input, so it actually will finish the command with what you are trying to execute after that and consume the input buffer, which might produce different results on each machine.
See set command reference for more details

Command Alias within a Batch Program

Hello,
I don't know if anybody can help me, because I've search a lot without success.
On my DOS Terminal (XP) I send successfully those commands :
doskey CS=call smile.bat $*
CS
or
CS arg1
It works PERFECTLY !
Then I insert these commands in a new batch file :
#echo off
doskey CS=call smile.bat $*
CS arg1
Error returned : CS is an unknown command...
I do absolutely want to use aliases in my batch program, but I do not want to modify my Path nor my Reg, because it is just to use in the Batch itself. I want to find a solution, but I need any idea. Please if some one can help me with an example, it would be very useful.
EDIT
You cannot run a doskey macro from a batch program.
If you just want to call a Batch file via another name, then just define another Batch file (with the second name) that call the first one. For example
CS.bat file may have this line:
#call smile.bat %*
then, in the first Batch file:
call CS
or
call CS arg1
If this is enough for you, then you may even create the alias Batch file inside the first Batch file this way:
echo #call smile.bat %%*> CS.bat
I hope it helps...

batch language tutorials - running simple programs that rely on .bat file

I am just starting to get a handle on batch programming.
To date, I've been copy/pasting into the MS-DOS command prompt from a text editor. Some of these copy pastes are getting large. Im sure there is a better way to go about this, ie. writing a line in command prompt that calls other text files (effectively doing the work of copy pasting).
Are these external files going to be .bat (which are just text that could also be put directly into the command prompt?) or .txt or something else?
I am mainly looking into this so that I can get into reusing code and getting into looping.
Are there any tutorials someone would recommend to get my acquainted with these topics?
Thanks for any help.
You can name a text file .bat or .cmd (the latter if you know it's only usable as a Windows batch file) and put commands into it, line by line.
You can run such files by typing their name at the command prompt when you're in the directory where they reside (or if they are contained in one of the PATH directories).
By default the behavior will match pretty much exactly with what you would type by hand. You'll see what commands are executed as well as their output. For example the following batch file (saved as test.cmd here)
echo Hello World
dir /b *.cmd
yields the following output when run
> echo Hello World
Hello World
> dir /b *.cmd
date.cmd
foo.cmd
test.cmd
x.cmd
y.cmd
You can suppress the output of the command being run by including the line
echo off
in your batch file. Prefix it with an # to suppress command output for that line in particular, but ever subsequent command won't be echoed:
#echo off
If other concrete questions arise, feel free to ask.

Stupid Batch File Behavior. Tries to execute comments

I have tried prefixing lines with semicolons, 'REM', etc.. but no matter what when I run my batch file I keep getting "unknown command REM whatever"
"REM test" It is not recognized, and it is windows vista. I simply get "rem" output back to my console.
That's entirely normal behavior. Batch files are simply sequences of commands that are run one after another. So every line will get output to the console as if it were typed there.
H:\>echo rem test > test.cmd
H:\>test
yields the output
H:\>rem test
as if I typed rem test directly to the console.
You can suppress this by either prefixing the line with #:
#rem test
or by including echo off in the batch file:
#echo off
rem test
If I put ":: test" and execute it I get back "Test".
Can't reproduce here.
If I put "; test" it recursively executes itself
A semicolon at the start of the line seemingly gets ignored.
If you're talking about cmd.exe batch files under Windows, you can use:
rem this method or
:: this method.
For bash and a lot of other UNIX-type shells, you use:
# this method.
I'm pretty certain you're not using cmd.exe since that would give you an error like:
'rem' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
rather then:
Unknown command ...
If you are using a UNIX-type shell, the # character is almost certainly what you're after. If you let us know exactly the shell you're using, we can probably help out further.
you probably created an UNICODE file. These files contain 2 bytes header named BOM
which is not shown by any editor but cmd attempts to execute them and fails.
To make sure this is indeed an issue: type any other command at the very beginning
of your file and see it throws the same error - for example #echo test
To fix it, just create a new plain text file and copy content of the original file there.
then remove the original file and replace it by the newly created one.
In my case the problems are line endings. Somehow Maven or the Jenkins pipeline running on a Linux machine changed the line endings from Windows style (CR LF) to Unix style (LF). Changing them back solves the issue for me.

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