Getting Information from a Shell'ed Process into the VBA Program

Question

So, let's say that I have a VBA application inside of whatever Office Application. I have created a command-line VB.net program to do all of the fun web-services stuff.

Okay, the VBA application calls Shell() to run the command line program. Now, what is the best way to get information (a tracking number for a package) from the VB.net program back into the VBA program?

My thoughts on the issue so far include:

• Writing the number with Console.Write and then somehow extracting it in VBA
• Or, using some kind of external interface (like a database or file system) to number the data and then get it out in VBA.

Any thoughts on this?

Answer 1

Why not call the Web service directly from VBA?

Check the samples in MSDN on how this can be done:

Calling XML Web Services from Office VBA Using the Web Service References Tool

Other options that you have would be:

• Make your VB assembly COM-visible so that you talk to the VB code directly without having to launch a separate process
• Write all relevant data to an intermediate file and read that from VBA