executing .exe from using visual basic 6

Question

Hi, I'm new to visual basic. I'm trying to execute .exe file from VB. But I'm not getting the output. My .exe is having command line args. Following is my code

Private Sub Command1_Click()

    Shell "D:\FEP\extractFEPData.exe data.txt", vbNormalFocus

End Sub

In cmd prompt If I give command extractFEPData.exe data.txt It is parsing the file. But in VB after clicking command button nothing happens. Please help me. Thanks in advance....

Answer 1

(Assuming you want to capture the output)

You need to use some .NET functions (see here) if you are using VB.NET or some win32 API (see here) if you are using VB6.

Answer 2

Do you need to set the current directory? You are only passing the file name, not a full path.

ChDrive "d:" 

ChDir "d:\fep"     Shell "D:\FEP\extractFEPData.exe data.txt", vbNormalFocus

VB6 Manual

Answer 3

You can do this using the WShell.Exec method to run the program and return a WshScriptExec object that has a StdOut property which is a TextStream object you can read.

This can be a little clunky since it only supports blocking calls. However you can use API calls to run the external process and redirect its standard I/O streams to anonymous pipes that the VB6 program can read from/write to. This is more work but you get more control.

Perhaps you are looking for something else though?

Answer 4

In the past I've always used the ShellExecute Win32 API. You can find a great references on using it from VB6 below.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/238245

http://www.vbaccelerator.com/codelib/shell/shellex.htm