Win64 Starting an external exe and capturing the standard output text...

[Roger Cigol 107]

I have a C++ Builder (10.4.2) Windows 64 bit VCL application (clang64). Whilst it is running I want to start an external (third party) windows 64 bit exe console application and whilst this runs to completion I want my VCL application to capture (and I will write code to process) the) text output that the third party exe file sends to "standard output". Ideally I want to do this without the user being aware that it is happening.

 

It's easy to run an external console application in it's own shell, but how do I redirect the output from this external console application into my (already running) VCL application?

[pyscripter 694]

There are many Delphi units for doing that e.g.

-  JCL library in JclSysUtils Execute functions

- JVCL JvCreateProcess component 

and many others

[Rollo62 538]

DosCommand should be available in GetIt

[corneliusdavid 220]

Yes, DosCommand has both Delphi and C++ Builder packages to do exactly what you need.

[Remy Lebeau 1421]

If you don't want to rely on 3rd party wrappers, it is not very overly complicated to redirect the output and read it manually.  Just create a pipe, assign it to the STARTUPINFO passed to CreateProcess(), and then read from the pipe.  MSDN documents this task:

 

Creating a Child Process with Redirected Input and Output

Edited June 28, 2021 by Remy Lebeau

[Roger Cigol 107]

Thanks Remy - as you rightly say, it's not too difficult to get the console interface working. Slightly harder to write a unit test to prove that unicode chars are handled ok. But I got there in the end. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.