Question

passing vbscript variables to msdos cmd line

Asked by: s2944

Hi:

I am having no luck passing a variable that is defined in vbscript into a cmd line to kick off a program.  The program is looking for a start line like this:
>myprog.exe :\files
This will open the program and it will point to the files directory to display photos in that folder when it opens.
I want to take a variable that contains a directory path already defined in a prior part of the script.  The script starts one program and it results in the var objpath set with the desired directory path.  Then I want to kick off the second program above passing the objpath string as its argument.  The first program must startup in its own directory, thats why I am doing the reset of the directory to reposition and start the second.
Here's my current code which starts the second program but the objpath var is not seen.

Dim objShell
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
strfred = objpath
wscript.echo strfred
objShell.Run "%comspec% /k cd\ " & _
"& cd\program files" & _
"& cd breezesys\breezebrowserpro" & _
"& set strfred" & _
"& secondprogram.exe  strfred"

thanks for any help!!!

dave

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Asked On
2006-03-02 at 11:48:28ID21758425
Tags

vbscript

,

cmd

,

dos

Topics

MS DOS

,

Server Side Includes (SSI)

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
9

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Answers

 

by: SteveGTRPosted on 2006-03-02 at 11:53:46ID: 16088126

Try escaping the & like so:

objShell.Run "%comspec% /k cd\ " & _
"^& cd\program files" & _
"^& cd breezesys\breezebrowserpro" & _
"^& set strfred" & _
"^& secondprogram.exe  strfred"

Good Luck,
Steve

 

by: s2944Posted on 2006-03-02 at 12:15:17ID: 16088334

hi steve:
thanks - but that did not work - when it runs, it never even gets to the directory change, doesnt seem to like the esacpes.

dave

 

by: SteveGTRPosted on 2006-03-02 at 12:46:23ID: 16088646

You know I simply can't get the script engine to consume this simple processing. It keeps coming back with can't "Could not create object named "WScript.shell" when I run it like so:

wscript //NoLogo temp.vbs

or

cscript //NoLogo  temp.vbs

I was poking around and I found logic that supports the syntax of your original posting:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/script56/html/6f28899c-d653-4555-8a59-49640b0e32ea.asp

You could try placing your code in a temporary batch file and executing the batch file via the Run statement.

 

by: s2944Posted on 2006-03-02 at 12:57:49ID: 16088746

Steve:

I had thought of the bat file too, but I am convinced this should work.  (simple mind, easy to convince!)  In the mean time I will follow the link you provided.  Thanks!!!

So I tried a different approach:

Set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
wscript.Echo strfred
strCommand = "cd\ C:\program files\breezesys\breezebrowserpro"
wscript.Echo strCommand
objShell.Run strCommand
strCommand = "breezebrowser.exe  " & strfred
wscript.Echo strCommand
objShell.Run strCommand

When it hits eaither Run it errors out saying it cant find the program (!).  Below I've pasted the front part of the script, maybe I am doing something up there that is mucking things up? Cause if I rem out the Run commands and watch the echo outputs, everything looks really good.

Const WINDOW_HANDLE = 0
Const OPTIONS = 0
Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
Set objFolder = objShell.BrowseForFolder _
    (WINDOW_HANDLE, "Select a folder:", OPTIONS, "C:\010101_NJQHA")
strfred = objpath
If objFolder Is Nothing Then
    Wscript.Quit
End If
Set objFolderItem = objFolder.Self
objPath = objFolderItem.Path
Set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
dim strfred
strfred = objpath
strCommand = "downloader.exe"
strCommand = strCommand & " /d " & chr(34) & strfred & chr(34)
objShell.run strCommand
wscript.echo "OK to continue?"


confused.
d

 

by: ImranHashimPosted on 2006-03-05 at 22:22:38ID: 16112106

Try this: You have given " after strfred whereas it should be before the variable. The variables should not be in the quotes.

Dim objShell
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
strfred = objpath
wscript.echo strfred
objShell.Run "%comspec% /k cd\ " & _
"& cd\program files" & _
"& cd breezesys\breezebrowserpro" & _
"& set strfred" & _
"& secondprogram.exe " & strfred

 

by: s2944Posted on 2006-03-06 at 06:22:19ID: 16114453

Imran:

Thank you for taking the time to answer....I was able to get this working by using the following:

Set WshShell = wscript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
strCommand = """c:\program files\breezesys\breezebrowserpro\breezebrowser.exe"" " & strFred
'wscript.echo strCommand
WshShell.Run strCommand

Quotes sure are fun!

dave

 

by: ImranHashimPosted on 2006-03-06 at 06:25:47ID: 16114487

Good. This is the easiest way.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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