Calling a perl test script from visual studio?

[ba1688]

So I have a perl script that runs a bunch of input scripts into this solution I have in VS Studio. Basically I don't want to leave VS Studio anymore and I just want to run this perl script from VS Studio while I'm in my solution. Anyone know how I can?

[davies]

Whenever I want to call Perl from Excel, I use http://www.cpearson.com/excel/ShellAndWait.aspx. This may contain stuff that will help you, but unfortunately this is PerlMonks, not VisualStudioMonks.

Regards,

John Davies

[Jenda]

So just add it in Tools / External Tools. You can run whatever you like from the Tools menu.

[dbuckhal]

What language are you using in Visual Studio?

For ProjectEuler Problem 11, I wrote a solution in C#, as well as Perl. Then I thought it would be interesting to use Perl to generate a n x n random number array for the C# program.

So, I browsed around and found an example to execute Perl from within C# code. It then stores the array in "data" for C# to process.

Maybe this might be something of use to you?

// confiure Perl number generator
string perlCommand = @"C:\cygwin\bin\perl.exe";  // your Perl
string perlScript = "ranArrayGen.pl";            // your script

// how big of array ( default = 20 x 20 )
Console.Write("Enter desired array size [20]: ");
string perlArg = Console.ReadLine();
int readInt;
if ( !int.TryParse( perlArg, out readInt ) )
    perlArg = "20";

// setup process info for script
ProcessStartInfo perlStartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo(perlCommand);
perlStartInfo.Arguments = perlScript + " " + perlArg;
perlStartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
perlStartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;

// execute Perl number generator
Process perl = new Process();
perl.StartInfo = perlStartInfo;
perl.Start();
string data = perl.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
perl.WaitForExit();
perl.Close();

// display working array data
Console.WriteLine("Using:\n{0}", data);