ShellExecute

[bettman]

Greetings,

Is there a way to have ShellExecute wait until the command it's running finishes?

[Deana]

Yes. Add an AppExist loop immediately after the ShellExecute. For Example:

Code (winbatch) Select Expand

programname = 'notepad.exe'
ShellExecute( programname, '', '', @NORMAL, '' )
While AppExist(programname, 0 , 0  )
    TimeDelay( 0.25 )
EndWhile
Pause( 'ShellExecute with wait', 'Complete' )
Exit

[snowsnowsnow]

That method will run into problems if there are multiple instances of the program running.

I usually use the "259 method" (details available upon request) - which depends on getting the process id (pid) of the spawned process and then waiting for that process to go away.  Of course, the hard part about this is getting the process ID (in a robust way that isn't prone to the same problem as alluded to above).

But, in fact, the "259 method" has a bug - that it can be fooled if a program does (the equivalent of) "exit(3);" (or is it "exit(259);' - I can't remember).  So, the for the truly paranoid, you have to use the "Wait Object" methods (which I've never investigated, so can't comment on).

[td]

The Framework Class Library (FCL) makes it almost trivial.

Code (winbatch) Select Expand

ObjectClrOption("use","System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089")

objProcess   = ObjectClrNew("System.Diagnostics.Process")

; Use ShellExecute to start the app instead of one of the 
; create process functions.
objProcess.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = ObjectType("BOOL", 1)
objProcess.StartInfo.FileName = "Notepad.exe"
objProcess.Start()

; Wait for the process to terminate.
objProcess.WaitForExit()
objProcess.Dispose()