External Commands are not Executing

[jleavitt]

What's going on with my PGP file?  I recently upgraded from Map 3D 2013 on Windows XP to Map 3d 2014 on Windows 7.  I had external commands defined in my 2013 PGP file that were executing properly.  Life was good.  I could execute them from the command line or from a lisp routine...they didn't care.

Now I find that the routines will not execute without an extra ENTER being furnished and that's only some of the time.  The extra ENTER will not force some of the commands to execute.  This is problematic because I call these routines from lisp routines that rely on them.

WHAT CHANGED?

Thank you,

J Leavittt

[dbroad]

Can you be more specific?  What external commands are you using?  What does the ACAD.PGP line look like?  Why would you need the ACAD.PGP for LISP programs?  Suggest using startapp instead.

[jleavitt]

I considered using STARTAPP, but it doesn't allow for redirection.  These are mission critical legacy DOS programs that have been re-compiled for use with Windows 2000.  Most of the routines that I invoke require command line responses to prompts which we have always handled by redirecting responses from another file.  Prior to running these from AutoCAD we used batch files to invoke the external commands with the proper input.  External commands were working perfectly before I upgraded so I used them in LISP routines.  I could have invoked the batch files, but they were taking up too much room in my working folder.

I've attached my PGP file for your examination.  The external commands seem to be running properly except that they now require that I furnish an extra ENTER keystroke when I invoke them from the command line.

Perhaps I should replace them with Power Shell scripts, but that's a lot of trouble if there's a simpler solution.

Thank you for your help.

J Edward Leavitt

Land Surveyor

Land, Title & Survey Mapping Section

DOI/BLM-CA State Office

2800 Cottage Way W-1939

Sacramento, CA 95825-1886

J_Leavitt@blm.gov

916.978.4347

[dbroad]

I don't know what could be causing the different behavior.  Your acad.pgp file though indicates a relatively simple workaround which you already know but don't want to do.  Just create a batch file for each redirect.  The first line of each batch file would be the file redirects. Since there are only a few unusual external commands, I doubt that would clutter your folders much.

[jleavitt]

Thanks for your input. It looks like I’ll have to rewrite my LISP routines
(once again) to correct this behavior.







J Edward Leavitt

Land Surveyor

Land, Title & Survey Mapping Section

DOI/BLM-CA State Office

2800 Cottage Way W-1939

Sacramento, CA 95825-1886

J_Leavitt@blm.gov

916.978.4347