How can I wait for a command-line program to finish? - delphi

Question

I have run program with command-line parameters. How can i wait for it to finish running?

Answer 1

This is my answer : (Thank you all)
uses ShellAPI;
function TForm1.ShellExecute_AndWait(FileName: string; Params: string): bool;
var
exInfo: TShellExecuteInfo;
Ph: DWORD;
begin
FillChar(exInfo, SizeOf(exInfo), 0);
with exInfo do
begin
cbSize := SizeOf(exInfo);
fMask := SEE_MASK_NOCLOSEPROCESS or SEE_MASK_FLAG_DDEWAIT;
Wnd := GetActiveWindow();
exInfo.lpVerb := 'open';
exInfo.lpParameters := PChar(Params);
lpFile := PChar(FileName);
nShow := SW_SHOWNORMAL;
end;
if ShellExecuteEx(#exInfo) then
Ph := exInfo.hProcess
else
begin
ShowMessage(SysErrorMessage(GetLastError));
Result := true;
exit;
end;
while WaitForSingleObject(exInfo.hProcess, 50) <> WAIT_OBJECT_0 do
Application.ProcessMessages;
CloseHandle(Ph);
Result := true;
end;

Answer 2

If I understand your question correctly, you want to execute program in command-line and capture its output in your application rather than in console window. To do so, you can read the output using pipes. Here is an example source code:
Capture the output from a DOS (command/console) Window

Answer 3

Using DSiWin32:
sl := TStringList.Create;
if DSiExecuteAndCapture('cmd.exe /c dir', sl, 'c:\test', exitCode) = 0 then
// exec error
else
// use sl
sl.Free;

Answer 4

Ok, getting the command-line parameters, you use
ParamCount : returns the number of parameters passed to the program on the command-line.
ParamStr : returns a specific parameter, requested by index.
Running Dephi Applications With Parameters
Now, if what you meant is reading and writing to the console, you use
WriteLn : writes a line of text to the console.
ReadLn : reads a line of text from the console as a string.
Delphi Basics

Answer 5

If what you want is to execute a command-line executable, and get the response that this exe writes to the console, the easiest way could be to call the exe from a batch file and redirect the output to another file using >, and then read that file.
For example, if you need to execute the "dir" command and get its output you could have a batch file called getdir.bat that contains the following:
#echo off
dir c:\users\myuser\*.* > output.txt
you could exec that batch file using the API function ShellExecute. You can read about it http://delphi.about.com/od/windowsshellapi/a/executeprogram.htm
Then you can read output file, even using something like a TStringList:
var
output: TStringList;
begin
output := TStringList.Create();
output.LoadFromFile('output.txt');
...