How to wait for an ShellExecute to finish

[Gerrit Beuze]

Hi all,

I start an utility exe with ShellExecute(...) from my code
and I'd like to wait until that exe completed.
How can I do that?

Diggin in the win32 help, I found ShellExecuteEx that returns the
handle of the instance created. There's also WaitForSingleObject(handle, timeout)
But how can I combine these?
Should I look for the process associated with the instance? and how would that work?

Thanks in advance,

Gerrit Beuze

[Avatar Zondertau]

A process handle becomes signaled when the process terminated.
WaitForSingleObject returns when the specified object becomes signaled
or the timeout elapses. If ShellExecuteEx executed (and indeed returned
a valid process handle - not an error) you can call

WaitForSingleObject(ReturnedHandle, INFINITE);

to wait until the process is terminated.

[Gerrit Beuze]

Hi,

I understand the WaitForSigleObject bit, but how do I get the process handle?

Gerrit

"Avatar Zondertau" <avatarz...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:412ce004$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...

[Avatar Zondertau]

> I understand the WaitForSigleObject bit, but how do I get the process
> handle?

The hProcess member of the SHELLEXECUTEINFO structure passed to
ShellExecuteEx should contain it after the call if the proper flags are
set (set fMask to SEE_MASK_NOCLOSEPROCESS).

[Gerrit Beuze]

Now I see,

Thanks,

Gerrit
"Avatar Zondertau" <avatarz...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:412ce35b$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...

[Francisco Alvarado]

// I found this in some forum
function WinExecAndWait32(FileName: string; Visibility: integer): integer;
{ returns -1 if the Exec failed, otherwise returns the process' exit
code when the process terminates }
var
zAppName: array[0..512] of char;
lpCommandLine: array[0..512] of char;
zCurDir: array[0..255] of char;
WorkDir: string;
StartupInfo: TStartupInfo;
ProcessInfo: TProcessInformation;
begin
StrPCopy(zAppName, '');
StrPCopy(lpCommandLine, FileName);
GetDir(0, WorkDir);
StrPCopy(zCurDir, WorkDir);
FillChar(StartupInfo, Sizeof(StartupInfo), #0);
StartupInfo.cb := Sizeof(StartupInfo);
StartupInfo.dwFlags := STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW;
StartupInfo.wShowWindow := Visibility;
if not CreateProcess(
nil, { pointer to command line string }
lpCommandLine,
nil, { pointer to process security attributes }
nil, { pointer to thread security attributes}
False, { handle inheritance flag }
CREATE_NEW_CONSOLE or { creation flags }
NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS,
nil, { pointer to new environment block}
nil, { pointer to current directory name }
StartupInfo, { pointer to STARTUPINFO }
ProcessInfo) then Result := -1 { pointer to PROCESS_INF }
else begin
WaitforSingleObject(ProcessInfo.hProcess, INFINITE);
GetExitCodeProcess(ProcessInfo.hProcess, Result);
CloseHandle(ProcessInfo.hProcess);
CloseHandle(ProcessInfo.hThread);
end;
end;

[Jens Geyer]

> Diggin in the win32 help, I found ShellExecuteEx that returns the
> handle of the instance created. There's also
> WaitForSingleObject(handle, timeout) But how can I combine these?

You are on the right track. The rest of the puzzle you'll find here:

http://groups.google.com/groups?&q=shellexecuteex+waitforsingleobject&meta=group%3Dborland.public.delphi.language.delphi.win32

(one line)

Another possibility is CreateProcess(), but ShellExecuteEx() is somewhat
simpler to use and ok in most cases.
JensG