Re: Questions on "Calling PC Commands from RPG" article

Hi Dan,
 
<snip>
cmd.exe "understands" Start. (I'm guessing Start is an "internal" command,
like the DIR command? On a command line, type "Start /?" to see a
description; I didn't see anything that might relate to the current issue.)
I tried "Start winword.exe" from cmd.exe, and Word started up fine. Did the
same using the java program, and got the same IO exception error.
</snip>
 
the "start" DOS command simply states that whatever follows the command
should be run within the "windows" GIU environment. This is similar to using
"site" when FTPing data - cmd.exe doesn't understand what follows "start",
it simply passes it on for procesing. The advantages of using "start" are
legion - but the important thing to note is that the command is passed to
the "windows" execution environment. For example, type the following into a
DOS command:
 
start  <mailto:somebody@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=something>
mailto:somebody@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=something
 
Did the email get created and opened for you? If Outlook was closed, was it
opened for you? What you should see when running this command in DOS is
EXACTLY what you'd see if you clicked on the link part of the command
(everything after "start") above. 
 
Now, don't close the newly-opened email, and run the command in DOS again...
 
Did you get another email opened? Yes! But did you get another instance of
Outlook opened? No! That's because you're running within the "windows"
environment, so checks such as these are performed for you - you're email
was created using the currently open Outlook. However, if you try to create
an email by passing parms to Outlook from a direct call within DOS you'll
get a new copy of Outlook every time. This is the BIG advantage of using
"start", and don't underestimate this - you are effectively hooking into the
"windows" environment... Well, you're emulating the behaviour you expect to
get when working within the windows environment.
 
So, you should be able to pass your URL to cmd.exe as a parm to the "start"
command. This should then execute the URL "within" windows.
 
HTH
 
Cheers
Larry Ducie