Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!cjveenm
From: cjveenm@cs.vu.nl (Veenman CJ)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Can batch files return value to C program?
Keywords: TurboC,Batch,ErrorLevel
Message-ID: <6082@star.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 22 Mar 90 12:43:18 GMT
References: <2469@rodan.acs.syr.edu> <26029AB4.25754@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
Sender: news@cs.vu.nl
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam
Lines: 19

In article <26029AB4.25754@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca> cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn) writes:

>    Please note that a batch file can not return an errorlevel at all.
>Only .COM and .EXE programs return errorlevels, and to get their return
>codes they can not be executed using the system () call, since that
>invokes COMMAND.COM first and COMMAND.COM doesn't pass back the errorlevel
>of any program it spawns.
>
>   There are programs that can update copies of the environment table other
>than their own; you may want to get your hands on one or two of those and
>see if you can implement some form of return codes using them.

The reason you do a system () call is to let your shell use your PATH in finding
the program you want to execute, but I can be wrong. In this case you can do a
exec call and use your PATH yourself to find the program. Then _you_ will get
the possible error code. In Turbo Pascal the procedure Exec can be used and in C
something simalar might exist. I wrote a procedure to do this and it works.

				Cor.