Initiates an external application with optional command-line arguments.
0 |
File Path or Embedded File |
Program Path |
The path to the program to execute. |
1 |
String |
Command Line Arguments (optional) |
Optional command-line arguments to pass to the executing program. |
2 |
Boolean |
Wait for Program Completion |
Indicates whether the MP should pause until the program finishes. |
3 |
Integer |
Process Exit Code |
Windows Process Exit Code return as part of trying to run the application. |
None.
SUCCESS |
The program was executed successfully. |
FAILURE |
The program could not be found or executed. |
This command supports both absolute paths (ex. C:\test.exe) and relative paths (ex. .\test.exe). If a rela- tive path is provided and the MP is embedded, the path will be relative to the current SA file location.
The file to execute does not necessarily need to be an executable (.exe) file. Batch files (.BAT), VBScript files (.VBS), and other file types that execute when double-clicked will work with this command.
Command line arguments should not be enclosed in quotes. If more than one argument is provided, separate them by a space--not a comma. For example, to run a program with two command-line arguments, argument #1 might be
-x file.txt.
If the Wait for Program Completion argument is set to TRUE, the MP will pause while the other program is running and SA will not receive events from Windows. As a result, SA will appear to have hung or crashed. This is normal, and once the application completes and returns control back to SA, the interface will be updated and become responsive again. For this reason, it is recommended to minimize the SA interface (using the Set SA’s Window State command) prior to running an external program with this method.
If the Wait for Program Completion argument is set to FALSE, the MP will start to execute the specified program and immediately continue to the next step in the MP.
Process Exit Code is a windows process level integer error code returned as part of any attempt to run a separate pro- gram. It returns values such as:
Operation completed successfully
Incorrect function.
System cannot find the file specified
... (a full listing can be found from Microsoft).