Can C language be used on windows files??

[blackgoat]

Its a really wierd question I guess.. but what I want to know is that can C language .. or any other language for that matter, be used to access, open and execute a file in a windows OS?? eg a power point slide show??

thanks

BG

[Banfa]

Well basically yes but there is a whole can or worms to sort out once the basic question is out of the way.

What were you trying to do?

[blackgoat]

@Banfa
Thanks for replying.

Well I have to execute a slide show basically.. but I want the file to open only if the system date satisfies the basic requirement like if date<01/01/2011 etc.

How can I achieve this?

Thanks again

BG

[Jyoti Ballabh]

yea, it's possible but you will need to deal with a plenty of troubleshooting. If you need the file to be date responsive, you could set a numeric counter to begin with followed by conversion to string mode and then comparing it.

[blackgoat]

@Jyoti Ballabh
okay but I'am not really sure how to go about this.. could you pls help by explaining a bit elaborately.

thanks

[Banfa]

I don't think you need to use C to do this. Have you looked at the Task Scheduler in the Control Panel?

[weaknessforcats]

You will need to use an SDK from Microsoft for this. That is, your slide show example requires a startup iof a PowerPoint process. There is an Office SDK for this.

Be prepared to address a whole host of issues (not the least of which is learning Windows programming) if you try this.

[Oralloy]

Let me understand this - you want to build a wrapper for your power-point presentation, which prevents showing the presentation after a given cut-off date.

I assume that you would also like to prevent the user from accessing the raw file from power-point, and looking at it after the cut-off date.

Or have I misunderstood your goals?

[blackgoat]

@Oralloy
Yes, that is exactly what I need to do.. using C language or any other programming language was just a wild guess. Please also let me know if there is any other way of going about it.

Thanks

[Oralloy]

This is getting beyond my ability to code in Windows without research, but ....

Create a little program to run and check the date
if the date is bad, issue a message and exit.
otherwise
create a DDE or COM connection to PowerPoint.
shove the file across the link.

I'm not sure if your code will have to manage the window or not. As I said, this is a bit more complex than I've done before.