system

int system (const char command[]);

Purpose

Starts running a program and waits for it to exit. The executable can be an MS-DOS or Windows executable, including *.exe, *.com, *.bat, and *.pif files.

This function does not return until the command terminates. User keyboard and mouse events are ignored until the command exits. Callbacks for asynchronous events, such as idle events, Windows messages, and VXI interrupts, PostDeferred calls, and DAQ events can be called while the command is executing.

Note  If you do not want to wait for the program to exit, use LaunchExecutable in the Utility Library.

.exe, .com, and .bat DOS programs use the settings in _default.pif in the Windows directory when running. You can change settings such as priority and display options by editing _default.pif or by creating another .pif file. For more information about creating and editing .pif files, refer to www.msdn.com.

If you need to execute a command built into cmd.exe, such as copy or dir, you can call system with the following command:

cmd.exe /c command args

where command is the command you want to execute. For example, the following function call copies file.tmp from the temp directory to the tmp directory:

system ("cmd.exe /c copy c:\temp\file.tmp c:\tmp");

For more information about cmd.exe, refer to www.msdn.com.

Parameters

Return Value

Additional Information

Library: ANSI C Library

Include file: ansi_c.h

LabWindows/CVI compatibility: LabWindows/CVI 3.0 and later