Can I auto-launch multiple perl apps in different command windows?

[cormanaz]

Good day Monks. I have a set of six Perl apps (running on Windows) that talk to one another through sockets. I want them to run in different command windows so I can keep an eye on stuff they're writing to stdout. Currently I get this to happen by manually opening six windows one at a time and starting a differnt app in each one.

I am tired of doing this and want to write a script that will start everything for me automatically, but I can't figure out how to do it. A perl script using the system function won't work and neither will a dos batch file because those both try to use the same process. I have not tried fork because I'm not sure creating child processes is really what I want to do.

I'd be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction.

Steve

[Albannach]

You can use a batch file with the START command (HELP START at your command prompt for details). I use this frequently to start multiple Perl processes each in its own command window.

[tinita]

you can also use screen for things like that. depends on how you want to see the output.

update: oh, sorry, i didn't read the 'windows' for some reason...

[Scrat]

Depending on your scripts you're running you can use Win32::Process where you can launch more than one program.

Here's a simple example:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;

use Win32;
use Win32::Process;
      
my $ProcessObj; 
        
Win32::Process::Create($ProcessObj,
                        "C:\\perl\\bin\\perl.exe",
                        "perl c:\\script1.pl",
                        0,
                        NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS,
                        ".")|| die ErrorReport();
        
sleep 2;
        
Win32::Process::Create($ProcessObj,
                        "C:\\perl\\bin\\perl.exe",
                        "perl c:\\script2.pl",
                        0,
                        NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS,
                        ".")|| die ErrorReport();
exit;

sub ErrorReport{
                print Win32::FormatMessage( Win32::GetLastError() );
        }

Will execute 2 perl scripts 2 seconds apart. Hope it helps.

[ambrus]

You can write their output in different logfiles and then tail -F them in different windows.