L

LaunchProcess (XSIUtils)

Introduced

5.0

Description

Launches an external process such as a batch file, external text editor or command prompt.

On Linux this method is identical to the System command except that no message is logged in the Script History window. On Windows the System command will pop up a temporary command prompt, but this method will not. For further details please refer to the Win32 documentation for CreateProcess.

Scripting Syntax

XSIUtils.LaunchProcess( CommandLine, [Blocking], [StartupDirectory] )

C# Syntax

Int32 XSIUtils.LaunchProcess( String in_AppAndCommandLineArgs, Boolean in_bBlock, Object& in_Directory );

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
CommandLine	String	The executable name and any command line options. Be sure to use extra quote characters if there are space characters in any path or filename in the string. For example the quotes in '"C:\My Programs\myeditor.exe"' prevent XSI from trying to execute an executable named 'C:\My.exe'.
Blocking	Boolean	If blocking is set to true then XSI will not return from this method until the child process has finished execution. Default Value: false
StartupDirectory	String	An initial directory for the process. When not set the Process will launch with the same directory as the current XSI working directory. This option is useful when launching command prompts.

Return Value

Long - When blocking is set to true the exit code of the child process is returned

Examples

1. VBScript Example

'
'  This example launchs a command prompt with the directory set 
'  to the current user path
'
' The new command prompt inherits all the environmental variables
' from XSI so it will behave like an XSI command prompt

startDir = Application.InstallationPath( siUserPath )

bBlocking = false  ' We don't want the command prompt to freeze XSI

if Application.Platform = "Win32" then
   XSIUtils.LaunchProcess "cmd /C start cmd /K title XSI Command Prompt", bBlocking, startDir  
else
   XSIUtils.LaunchProcess "xterm", bBlocking, startDir
end if

2. JScript Example

/*
   This example shows how the XSIUtils.LaunchProcess method can be used to execute an 
   external process. In this case it shows spdlcheck can be used to test a spdl directly 
   from within scripting.
*/

if ( Application.Platform == "Win32" )
{
   var slash = "\\" ;
       }
else
{
   var slash = "/" ;
}

// Path to one of the spdl files that ships with XSI
var twistSpdl = Application.InstallationPath( siFactoryPath ) + slash + "Application" 
          + slash + "spdl" + slash + "twistop.spdl" ;

var strResults = SpdlCheckFile( twistSpdl ) ;

if ( strResults == "" )
{
   LogMessage( "Spdl is OK" ) ;
}
else
{
   LogMessage( "Spdl is busted:\n" + strResults ) ;
}


// Helper function that runs spdlcheck on the provided file path. 
// Returns:
//  - an empty string if the spdl is ok.  
//  - the error details output by spdlcheck if there is a problem.
function SpdlCheckFile( in_file )
{
   // We will launch "spdlcheck" and tell it to output
   // its results into a temporary file
   var tmpFile = Application.InstallationPath( siUserPath ) + slash
          + "spdlcheckoutput.tmp" ;

   var cmd = "spdlcheck -nologo -noverbose -out \"" + tmpFile + "\" \"" + in_file + "\"";

   Logmessage( "This command line will be executed:\n" + cmd ) ;

   // Specify true for the blocking argument so that our script waits until spdlcheck
   // has finished before trying to read the output file
   XSIUtils.LaunchProcess( cmd, true ) ;

   var oFSO = new ActiveXObject( "Scripting.FileSystemObject" ) ;

   var oTextFile = oFSO.OpenTextFile(tmpFile, 1 ) ;

   // We expect a string like:
   // "Compilation succeeded c:\Softimage\<....>\Application\spdl\twistop.spdl (XSI Object)"
   fileAsStr = oTextFile.ReadAll() ;

   oTextFile.Close() ;
   oFSO.DeleteFile( tmpFile ) ;

   // If we find the string "Compilation succeeded" then we would know that 
   // we were successful
   if ( -1 != fileAsStr.search( /Compilation succeeded/ ) )
   {
       return "" ;
   }

   // Return the error details
   return fileAsStr ;
}

See Also

System

SOFTIMAGE|XSI v6.01

Return to Softimage XSI Index