9.3 Manipulating application information

The Operating-System module contains a number of functions for manipulating information specific to a given application, rather than the environment as a whole. You can run or quit any application, and interrogate the running application for application-specific information.

run-application

Function

run-application command #key under-shell? inherit-console? 
                              activate? minimize? 
  => status 

Runs the application specified by command. Using this function is equivalent to typing command in an MS-DOS console window. The function returns the exit status of the application.

If under-shell? is #t, an MS-DOS shell is created to run the application; otherwise, the application is run directly. It is #f by default.

If inherit-console? is #t, the new application uses the same console window as the current application; otherwise, the new application is created with a separate console window. It is #t by default.

If the activate? keyword is #t, the shell window becomes the active window. It is #t by default.

If the minimize? keyword is #t, the command's shell will appear minimized. It is #f by default.

exit-application

Function

exit-application status => ()

Terminates the running application. Returns the value of status.

application-arguments

Function

application-name

Function

application-filename

Function

application-arguments () => arguments 

application-name () => name 

application-filename () => false-or-filename 

These functions respectively return the arguments passed to the running application, the name of the running application, and the full filename (that is, the absolute pathname) of the running application.

These functions take no arguments. The function application-arguments returns an instance of <simple-object-vector>; application-name returns an instance of <byte-string>; and application-filename returns an instance of false-or(<byte-string>).

tokenize-command-string

Function

tokenize-command-string line => command #rest arguments

This argument passed to this function is an MS-DOS command that could be used to start an application from the MS-DOS command line. It returns the command itself, together with any command-line arguments. All arguments and return values are instances of <byte-string>. (In the case of the arguments returned, each individual argument is an instance of <byte-string>.) You can use this function to break up any MS-DOS command into its constituent parts.

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System and I/O Reference - 31 MAR 2000