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From: wyoung@ksuvax1.cis.ksu.edu (William J. Young)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Calling alien programs in Turbo Pascal, how?
Keywords: Alien Pascal
Message-ID: <0xe34@deimos.cis.ksu.edu>
Date: 22 Sep 89 14:54:07 GMT
References: <5644@decvax.dec.com>
Sender: news@deimos.cis.ksu.edu
Reply-To: wyoung@ksuvax1.cis.ksu.edu (William J. Young)
Organization: Kansas State University, Dept of Computing & Information Sciences
Lines: 31

In article <5644@decvax.dec.com> f0057@uafhp.uucp (James E. Ward) writes:
>...  The idea I want to try is to call an editor on a
>text file from within the application so the user will have the
>ultimate in expandability and editing of this field.  My question to
>you is:
>Can this be done in Turbo Pascal 3.0?  Must we convert the massive
>thing to Turbo 5.0 (we have it)?  Can it be done from Turbo Pascal
>5.0?  If so, how?
>In psuedocode, I believe it would go something like:
>command = "editor " + filename
>system(command)

Your pseudocode is basically right.  However, TP3.x does not have the
EXEC procedure that is found in TP4 and TP5.  You could use the DOS 
function call (using the TP3 MSDOS procedure - not sure that is the
right name for the procedure, as I no longer have my TP3 docs).  You'll
have to get yourself a tech manual or a book on DOS function calls to
find out what the right function is.  

CAUTION:  I don't remember how TP DB Toolbox allocates memory 
(if that is what you are using - or I don't know how you are allocating 
memory), but it is up to you to free sufficient memory for whatever you are 
calling before you make the DOS function call.  This includes the heap space!  

Good luck.

--
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Bill Young 1408 Cambridge Place, Apt 19 Manhattan, KS  66502  (913) 537-6840
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