How to run MS-DOS Utilities within a VB program and store result in a string (not a text file)?

Try this. add a command button,and 2 Textboxes. Textbox2 should have the MultiLine Property set to True. Type the command in Textbox 1 and the results should appear in Textbox2 when you click the command button.Hope this helps:

Private Declare Function OpenProcess Lib "Kernel32" (ByVal dwDesiredAccess As Long, ByVal bInheritHandle As Long, ByVal dwProcessId As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetExitCodeProcess Lib "Kernel32" (ByVal hProcess As Long, lpExitCode As Long) As Long
Private Declare Sub Sleep Lib "Kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
Const STILL_ACTIVE = &H103
Const PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION = &H400

Private Function ShellWait(PathName, Optional WindowStyle As VbAppWinStyle = vbNormalFocus) As Double
Dim hProcess As Long, RetVal As Long
    hProcess = OpenProcess(PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION, False, Shell(PathName, WindowStyle))
    Do
        GetExitCodeProcess hProcess, RetVal
        DoEvents: Sleep 100
    Loop While RetVal = STILL_ACTIVE
End Function

Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim TmpFile As String, Ln As String, Result As String
Dim ff As Integer
Result = ""
TmpFile = Environ("Temp") & "\tmpcmd.tmp"
' shell & wait for cmd to complete,redirecting results to a tmp file
ShellWait Environ("Comspec") & " /c " & Text1.Text & " > " & TmpFile, vbHide

' open tmpfile and get data into Result string
ff = FreeFile
Open TmpFile For Input As #ff
Do Until EOF(ff)
Line Input #ff, Ln
If Result = "" Then
    Result = Ln
Else
    Result = Result & vbCrLf & Ln
End If
Loop
Close #ff

' make sure Text2 has the MultiLine property set to True
Text2.Text = Result

End Sub

Thats basically the way that I know how to do it. Its just instead of writing the command line result to a txt file you are writing it to a tmp file and then reading and storing the results of that file into a string...

The way I have done it before is that the result of the ms-dos utility went straight into a string. I didnt write any results to any file, it went straight to the string which was then displayed in a text box..

Also I recall the command to do that was really short...I think 1 or 2 lines total..

Check out that url I posted to the program which contains that code...as you can see it doesnt save any files to your computer.

Thanks for replying though.

Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objExecObject = objShell.Exec("%comspec% /c ipconfig.exe")

Do Until objExecObject.StdOut.AtEndOfStream
 strLine = objExecObject.StdOut.ReadLine()
 strIP = Instr(strLine,"Address")
 If strIP <> 0 Then
 Wscript.Echo strLine
 End If
Loop


from

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/2000/server/scriptguide/en-us/sas_wsh_pkoy.mspx

Or

Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objExecObject = objShell.Exec("%comspec% /c ipconfig.exe")
debug.print objExecObject.StdOut.ReadAll()

EDDYKT: The code that you posted would be perfect if I were using VBScript but it doesnt seem to work with VB 6 - The code that I remember using was similar to what you posted and short like that...

So if anyone else knows what I am talking about please post that code as this is the prefered answer that I am looking for..

Mikal613: The first link that you posted does what I want. I will accept your answer if nobody else is able to come up with what I am truly looking for. The code in that example is very complicated, I dont remember using anything remotely close to that in my program. Like I said earlier my code was only a few lines.

Thanks anyways

Cool EDDYKT that works, but is there a way to keep the MS-DOS window from showing up at all (even though it closes automatically later on)?

Thanks

Going to try one last time before closing this question :)
So right now, the method that EDDYKT posted works - I am able to run MS-DOS commands and load the result into a string without writing anything to a text file...But this method launches an MS-DOS window (then closes it when is done). Does anyone know a way to perform what I want without hving the MS-DOS window opening up?