topic Re: Is is possible to start an external application & get a result back from in Revit API Forum

Is is possible to start an external application & get a result back from it?

b_ralphs — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:49:24 GMT

Hi guys,

I'm new here. 🙂

I was just wondering if it's possable to start an external application, say I small command .exe that I've written, pass it a few arguments & then get a result back from it?

Can someone show me an example of this?

I've seen a othere posts that talk about not being able to start a process outside of the API;

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Revit-API/Start-transaction-not-working-with-Revit-2014/td-p/3877292

I'm not sure if this is the same thing or not...

thx for the help,

Barry

Re: Is is possible to start an external application & get a result back from

arnostlobel — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:29:17 GMT

Hello Barry,

Your question is a bit vague, but I’ll try to answer it based on what you provided. Sure you can start an external application (by which I suppose you mean another process) from an external command registered with and invoked from Revit. There is practically no limitation on what an external command can do, so instantiating and managing other processes is perfectly fine as far as Revit is concerned. What is very important here though, and there it is what somehow relates to the thread about transactions you pointed out, is that your external process has absolutely no direct communication with Revit. Besides that, your external process can do whatever it wants.

Please let me know if I misunderstood the intention you have with your project.

Thank you

Arnošt Löbel

Autodesk Revit R&D

Re: Is is possible to start an external application & get a result back from

b_ralphs — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:38:38 GMT

Thanks for the replay.

I would like to do something like this:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4291912/process-start-how-to-get-the-output

Or this:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/878632/best-way-to-call-external-program-in-c-sharp-and-parse-output

Is that possable?

thx,

Barry

Re: Is is possible to start an external application & get a result back from

arnostlobel — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:45:41 GMT

Hello Berry,

yes, it is possible; it has nothing to do with Revit and its API.

Arnošt Löbel
Autodesk, Revit R&D