Opening a text file in its native application

[FM]

Dearest Monks,

I don't understand why the following piece of code does not work the way I expect it (it opens a command prompt window when I expect it to open notepad). My goal is to open a .txt file in its native application which I assume to be notepad. The file is created and closed before I attempt to run this piece of code.

sub logfile{
        my $file = "$gGui{complogpath}/$gGui{complog}.txt";
        my @args = ("start",$file);
        for (@args) {
                  if (/ /) { $_ = qq{"$_"};
                }
        };
        system(@args) == 0
          or warn "Couldn't launch '$file' : $!/$?/$^E";
}#logfile

The following code opens Guide in its native application (adobe). In this case I don't worry about the path because I know that that file is in the same folder than the application code.

sub help{
        my $file = "Guide.pdf";
        my @args = ("start",$file);
        for (@args) {
                  if (/ /) { $_ = qq{"$_"};
                }
        };
        system(@args) == 0
          or warn "Couldn't launch '$file' : $!/$?/$^E";
}#help

In the first code that does not work, I have to give the full path and I have a feeling that it is the problem. I don't pass all the pieces correctly. (?)

I would appreciate any thoughts you may have.

Thanks in advance for your time.

Claire

[sk]

Start does not like spaces in the dir names (even if you quote them). Here is one way -

use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Basename;

my @args = ("start/d", "c:/program files/T.txt");

my $file = pop(@args);
push (@args, '"'. dirname($file) . '"', basename($file));

system(@args) == 0 or die $@;

(This will not work for filenames with spaces, not sure if start can handle it anyways).

-SK

[FM]

Hi SK,

This is wonderful! It works!

Thank you so much!

Claire

[helphand]

My guess is that the start command will not accept a path.

START           ["title"] [/Dpath] [/I] [/MIN] [/MAX] [/SEPARATE ¦ /SH
+ARED] [/LOW ¦ /NORMAL ¦ /HIGH ¦ /REALTIME] [/WAIT] [/B] [command / pr
+ogram] [parameters]

You might try using the /Dpath switch to specify the startup directory, that may work. Can't check here, no windows system available at the moment ;)

Scott

[FM]

Hi Scott,

Thank you for your reply. I have tried a few different ways to use the /Dpath switch, but I am not sure I got the syntax right--even though Perl is not giving me any warning. Could you give me an example with my code?

Thanks,

Claire

[BrowserUk]

It works for me. With or without the path; with the path equating to the cwd or not; it works.

What if any error messages are you getting when it fails?

What output do you get from the following commands?

P:\>assoc .txt
.txt=txtfile

P:\>ftype txtfile
txtfile=%SystemRoot%\system32\NOTEPAD.EXE %1

[sk]

Can you try the start command with a directory that contains a space? Start (at least for me) balks on dirnames with spaces. I am not sure if it will ever work on filenames with spaces. You have to use /d and specify the path with the space.

[FM]

Hi,

I get the same answers than you when I run the two commands you gave me.

[FM]

Hi,

It does not give me an error message. It opens a command prompt window instead of the file.

[FM]

hi,

I try the start command and opening a file and it works for me too, but in my code, I have a button that calls that sub and that might be the problem??

Thanks,

CL

[BrowserUk]

sk hit the nail on the head. The start command appears to have problems with paths that contain spaces, even if you quote them. However, I have found that it you quote the individual element of the path that contains the space, it then works.

So, for the path c:\program files\junk.txt, if you issue the command

system 'start', '"c:\program files\junk.txt"';

it fails, but if you issue the command

system 'start', 'C:\"program files"\junk.txt';

It succeeds. So you would need to modify your quoting mechanism to be something like this (untested):

sub logfile{
        my $file = "$gGui{complogpath}/$gGui{complog}.txt";
        my @args = ("start",$file);
        for (@args) {
            s[ 
                ( [\\/] )               ## A path delimiter
                ( [^\\/]* \s [\\/]* )   ## Two or more non delimiters 
                                        ## including a space
                ( [\\/] )               ## Another delimiter
            ][$1"$2"$3]gx;              ## Quote the path element
        };
        system(@args) == 0
          or warn "Couldn't launch '$file' : $!/$?/$^E";
}#logfile

[pKai]

my $long = 'D:/temp/spa ce/ab cd.txt';
my $short = Win32::GetShortPathName($long);
system('start', $short);

This will also avoid the problem that spaces in the actual filename cannot be handled/escaped in the start call.

It's not necessary to issue a use Win32;, since GetShortPathName is accessible as core function in AS perl on Win.