Launching a console process and waiting till it finishes

[Richard]

Good morning all

I need a way in visual basic 6, to start a console process, like

ping -A xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx > outputfile.txt

and make vb hold its own execution till this process finishes. Using
Shell() doesnt work, it starts a process, then just carries on
working.

The ping example above uses the > outputfile.txt to grab all the
console output from that program, which i then read later on my
program.

Am I looking at using API calls for this?

Currently im using RetVal = Shell("CMD /S ping -A 123.456.123.456 >
outputfile.txt")

Outputfile.txt part works perfectly. But VB continues its processing
past my Shell call before the CMD window terminates.

Thanks
Rich

[Bob Butler]

th*************@hotmail.com (Richard) wrote in message news:<67**************************@posting.google. com>...

Good morning all

I need a way in visual basic 6, to start a console process, like

ping -A xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx > outputfile.txt

and make vb hold its own execution till this process finishes. Using
Shell() doesnt work, it starts a process, then just carries on
working.

The ping example above uses the > outputfile.txt to grab all the
console output from that program, which i then read later on my
program.

Am I looking at using API calls for this?

yes; go to http://groups.google.com and search for "vb shell wait" and
you should find lots of samples using the createprocess and other API
calls to do this.

BTW, you could also search for "vb icmp ping" and find sample code for
doing a ping directly from VB without needing to shell out at all.

[Raoul Watson]

"Richard" <th*************@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:67**************************@posting.google.c om...

Good morning all

I need a way in visual basic 6, to start a console process, like

ping -A xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx > outputfile.txt

and make vb hold its own execution till this process finishes. Using
Shell() doesnt work, it starts a process, then just carries on
working.

The ping example above uses the > outputfile.txt to grab all the
console output from that program, which i then read later on my
program.

Am I looking at using API calls for this?

Currently im using RetVal = Shell("CMD /S ping -A 123.456.123.456 >
outputfile.txt")

Outputfile.txt part works perfectly. But VB continues its processing
past my Shell call before the CMD window terminates.

Thanks
Rich

Rich..

You may laugh at this.. but I had a similar problem a long time ago (it
wasn't ping but some other console command). I resorted to the old fashioned
batch file. After the command, the batch file would copy a file into a temp
directory.

In my code I simply check for that file, if it's there, it's completed. I
read the output file and delete the temp file.