nsExec question

nsExec is good that it will get the output of an MS-DOS program, but it will only get the ouput and print it after the MS-DOS program has finished running.
Is there any way to get the ouput of the MS-DOS program every second?

I'm suspecting this isn't possible under Windows (but I know it is under Linux)

-Stuart

If you use ExecToLog it gets new output and prints it as long as it gets it from the DOS program. If there is no output it waits 1/10 seconds and tries again. If you use ExecToStack you'll get the output only when the program has finished.

Hmm, well it still only prints the ouput when the program has finished, and prints nothing inbetween.

-Stuart

nsExec takes the output when the program gives it. Maybe it's your program that only outputs when it's finished.

In MS-DOS, there are loads of live output shown on the screen, like % complete, count status, section part etc
None of this shows up with nsExec.

Has nsExec been tested with any 'live' MS-DOS programs before?

-Stuart

That output will indeed not show until the line break appears. I will add that to the todo list. Did I understand right or does it wait for the whole output even though there are line breaks in there?

Output sample...

----------- qvis3 -----------

original code by id Software

Modified by Geoffrey DeWan

Revision 1.02

-----------------------------

fastvis = true

reading C:\Quake2\map-compile\maps\gbr\gbrsnow1.bsp

reading C:\Quake2\map-compile\maps\gbr\gbrsnow1.prt

1890 portalclusters

5804 numportals

0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9... (54)

WARNING: Leaf portals saw into leaf (938)

WARNING: Leaf portals saw into leaf (1091)

WARNING: Leaf portals saw into leaf (1451)

Average clusters visible: 1091

Building PHS...

Average clusters hearable: 1854

visdatasize:810110  compressed from 907200

writing C:\Quake2\map-compile\maps\gbr\gbrsnow1.bsp

 56.0 seconds elapsed

It goes line by line, but also the bit...
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9... (54)
...counts up as the compile goes along.

This is 1 of the 3 compile programs. They all have roughly the same output, but all output for all compilers only show after completion.

I hope nsExec can support live compile status, since no-one has been able to do it under Windows before. It has been done under Linux through a program called tee.exe. tee.exe was converted over to Windows, but unfortunatly Windows restricts it to showing output only after the program producing the output has finished.
Same as with MS-DOS where you can log commands / outputs like so:
C:\quake2\quake2.exe >> log1.log

-Stuart

Yeah the problem with that is the fact that the 0...1... bit doesn't ever print a newline character out so nsExec doesn't do anything with it until the end of the line. This can be solved but isn't brilliantly simple because it would involve repeatedly updating the same line in the details window rather than just printing out one line at a time.

There are probably lots of windows programs that can capture that, it's not hard, just unusual.

I've tried making some changes to nsExec, can you try my changed nsExec.dll please and tell me if it works for you... I don't have time to test this right now.. I'll be back later today some time.

I tried it.
Output still comes up only after it has finished😢

-Stuart

I'm having trouble fixing this at the mo, will try again later today.

[edit]I've tried changing all kinds of things but the pipe nsExec reads from is just not receiving the data... the best I've got so far is for nsExec to finally receive some data when the child process fills its output buffer but that takes a while (I'm guessing this is what's happening anyway). The damndest thing is that I don't appear to be able to disable or shrink that buffer. I tried getting the pipe to operate in byte mode but that didn't help either... I'll try some more stuff later.[/edit]

Right, I gave what time I had to this today (not much I'm afraid) but a solution was not forthcoming. I'm not saying I give up, I'm just saying don't hold your breath waiting for me to deliver a solution. I'll continue my investigation as soon as I can.

Would you like me to give you the exe program and a small map to test nsexec on?

-Stuart

I was testing it using pscp which also rewrites a line showing status information about the copy. I simply could not get the nsExec code to receive output from pscp until it finished the line and started a new one.

I know that WorldCraft's compiler window (the map editor I use) only outputs the text after a line break occurs. None of the counting up is shown. This caused a HUGE amount of anoyances from the general web public, but no matter how much the programmers at Valve tried, no one could get it to produce the live counting up output.

I'm not sure if the latest versions of WorldCraft show complete live output, because the old v1.6 version does Quake2 maps.

It seems that it was quite a task to get the output, even for people that created one of the best mapping programs out there.

Please don't give up though!

-Stuart

Maybe you could show me the source?
I'm no C/C++ wizard, but I know of many people who could help extremely.

-Stuart

nsExec

Resuming the topic from before about trying to get nsExec to get the live output from executables, I've just noticed it does get some output from exe files straight away.

e.g. with the Quake2 compilers, it outputs a lot of the information until it reaches the compile % done area. Thats where it stops outputing anything until the compile process has actually finished.

So, nsExec is nearly complete that it gets almost all live output,
however, it still doesn't get all live output.
Other peoples' compile programs do just the same as the current nsExec I have downloaded from SunJammer as I explained above.

-Stu

That's right. nsExec outputs a new line when it gets a line break.

What annoys me is that a DOS window prints characters that change before a line break appears, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't alter nsExec so that it could do the same. I tried many approaches but it simply never receives the data... 🙁

I wonder if we could conact M$ 😛

-Stu 🙂

I wonder if we could conact M$ 😛

and pigs will fly 😞

has anything more been done with this? (would have been good to see what changes Sunjammer had made in the modified version)

have a few ideas on this since i had some code way back that would capture the current screen from a console which you could then alter/use as needed (was an alternate way to get the data without using pipes - well it was my first attempt at hard core win32 and i didn't know about pipes at the time 😉)
i'm sure it would update when the screen had changed in any way

will check it out when i get home tonight and see what i can do

-daz

nsExec in latest CVS contains the changes that Sunjammer made, plus some other things.
However, the full live output was never achieved.

-Stu

thanks for that, just had a look at the nsExec source but will need to get on my machine to have a full check out of what's going on before i try anything else.

now where's those code backups... 😉

-daz

I'm glad someone is going to have another hack at it!

-Stu

had seen the thing in the todo.txt and had wondered what it was until i finally remembered to have a look at what it was today.

hack at it!

i think that's going to be the best way to describe it and i'm a sucker for punishment 😞

-daz

Live Output Test version

attached dll is what i have done so far.

it should capture things correctly when using ExecToLog(). i've checked it using chkdsk on win2k and NT4 (seems to lose the live line from the test just done on NT4 when it starts back on normal output 🙁) otherwise it should be fine. (will have to get worldcraft out again for extra checking)

if there are issues then please post what has gone wrong so i can get an idea of what to fix/change (already got the NT issue to work on).

i'm also working on ExecToStack() to handle live output correctly too (should have that done by tomorrow 😉)

-daz

Sorry to be negative, but this version is worse.
The older version actually printed the program name, and then went onto the processing, but this one waits before the processing has finished before printing anything.

-Stu

hmmm, strange that since before i altered things i checked how it worked using the example script and then against what i have done and it seemed to be fine.

what are you testing it with? may have an idea of why the first line could be being ditched. so it's not displaying anything since with chkdsk i've got it to correctly show the when % part was changing

-daz

Run qbsp3.exe on resist.map like so:
nsExec::ExecToLog "$\"$EXEDIR\qbsp3.exe$\" $\"C:\quake2\resist.map$\""

resist.map must go in C:\quake2 for the map compiler program to work.

It's a good idea to try the program in DOS first, to see how it runs, then compare it to nsExec.

-Stu

[off topic]cycling will kill me![/off topic]
at work (again) on a different machine so will give it a go now

-daz