Re: running a DOS batch file from a shell script - script doesn't wait for batch file to complete before continuing

[Larry Hall <lh-no-personal-replies-please at cygwin dot com>]

At 01:57 AM 12/30/2004, you wrote:
>Hi Larry,

Hi Andy,


>Since you were the only person who was kind enough to take the time to respond
>to my initial question, I owe it to you to provide a followup on this subject.


Thanks.  I appreciate that.  Though it's probably fair to say that I 
was the only other person reading your message that even knew what Pro/E
was. ;-)  During my years in this forum, I think it's only popped up once
before.  As a result, it's not too surprising that you weren't overwhelmed
by replies. ;-)


>I wrote a few DOS batch files as well as shell scripts to try and troubleshoot the
>problem. I managed to track down the problem to the Pro/E executable pro_batch_t.exe.
>Depending on whether the "-text" option is provided to pro_batch.bat, it will either
>run the UI executable or the command-line executable pro_batch_t.exe.
>
>The problem seems to come from pro_batch_t.exe. This program apparently
>wants to run in the background and therefore it doesn't matter whether you
>invoke it from a DOS batch file or a Cygwin shell script, the batch file/script will
>continue to run before pro_batch_t.exe terminates. The version of Pro/E in
>question is Release 20.


Ah, even older than the version I was working with.  In software terms, you
live firmly in the ancient past. ;-)  And I'm only in the distant past.  

The fact that pro_batch_t.exe creates a background process when run without
the GUI is exactly the reason for the behavior you saw, as you found.  I
probably wouldn't have noticed this problem myself even if I could have
run it exactly as you did because my license has expired. :-(


>To solve my problem, I added two loops to my scripts, one to check for the
>presence of the log file pro_batch.log.1 every 5 seconds and upon detecting
>it checks every 5 seconds for the keyword "Result" which is the last line of
>pro_batch.log.1 when pro_batch_t.exe is completed. It seems to do the job.


Sure.  That'll work.  One could get fancier but there's no need to mess
around with something that works and satisfies a need.

Good work and thanks for the follow-up!


--
Larry Hall                              http://www.rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
838 Washington Street                   (508) 893-9889 - FAX
Holliston, MA 01746                     


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