Re: Does anyone know how to write VB?

From: Eric (email_at_anon.com)
Date: 04/05/04 

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 10:35:40 -0400

"Larry Serflaten" <serflaten@usinternet.com> wrote in message
news:%23PbqoNxGEHA.2084@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
>
> "Eric" <email@anon.com> wrote
> > I wrote a message here last week,
>
> You mean last Friday.
>
> > and while it seems like most posts are
> > getting a response, mine did not.
>
> This is not a paid service, there is no expectation of gaurenteed service
level.
> Everyone here is a volunteer. Many volunteer less over the weekend.
>
> > Does no one know, or is it just not possible?
>
> You had all weekend to research the problem, to look for answers. What
> did you come up with?
>
>
> >We have a VB program that calls a process and keeps running. It
> > needs to execute a second process after the first process finishes. How
do
> > we tell it to wait on that line until the process finishes??
>
> Did you know this type of question comes up quite often? Posters are
> supposed to do a little research on their own, before posting questions.
> There is no reason to answer the same questions over and over when
> there is a searchable archive of all of the questions and their answers,
> readily available.
>

I never said there was a guaranteed service level. I apologize if I gave
that impression. I just happened to notice that most posts after mine got a
response while my original post did not. I was just wondering if it was
because no one on here had any knowledge on this matter or if it's just not
possible.

I did look through this forum and could not find any related messages, so
no. I was not aware this "type of question comes up quite often". I don't
know much about VB. I normally write Business BASIC programs. I looked at
the help provided by VB and didn't see anything on it. I'm not really sure
where to begin to research it on my own since I don't know a lot about the
language. My coworker who wrote the program did research the problem and I
mentioned the two solutions she came up with. I hadn't tried google. I did
look at Microsoft's site and didn't see anything related to it. I may have
just been looking in the wrong place since I'm no VB expert.

> Just to get you familiar with the process, I am going to tell you what to
> do. Go over to www.google.com, click on groups, and type in the three
> words: Shell And Wait then click on the button.
>
> There are over 150,000 hits for that combination, many of them having
> answers about waiting for a process to finish. But you may not know
> that is a common problem, or what word to type in, so try it again,
> and type in keywords that you do know, like 'print to file', 'wait for
> printer' or 'wait Excel print', any of those you could have easily
> thought of yourself. If that doesn't get it, then look for answers
> for questions that have to do with the print spooler, or print queue.
>
> Many people will answer a post only when they have experience in
> the area of interest. When you ask a question about an odd
> combination of events, or applications, you can expect there will
> be less chance your question will be read by someone with experience
> in that area.
>
> Also, this is a volunteer, peer to peer group. If you come in with
> an attitude like this last post shows, don't expect anybody will even
> want to help. If you don't get an answer the very first time, just calmly
> mention you are making a repost of an earlier message, and give the
> subject line of that message and post the deatils again. No one monitors
> this group 24/7, you have to expect you may have to wait a day or more
> for an answer, and even longer over the weekend.
>
> LFS
>

Again, I apoligize if my repost showed an "attitude". I was not trying to
offend anyone or suggest as some have that Microsoft monitors this group and
is required to answer everyone on here seeking help. I thought this would
be a simple solution and was wondering if anyone knew offhand or if it can't
be done. In Business BASIC which I normally work with, if we execute an
external process, it can check with the operating system to get a return
code back saying that process is done. It normally stops on the external
call and waits for it to finish, unless the call ends with &, then it
continues processing.

I do appreciate the responses here and I think we may find a workaround from
that. I gather it is not possible to tell VB to wait for the process, so I
think the ugly workaround is this. Since the process we want to execute
after the external file is done, is simply to rename the output file, we
could just 1) rename it 2) check for file exist on original file 3) if
exists, loop back to rename again.
I believe that can be done, though I'm not sure the exact syntax offhand. I
think we can figure it out. Thanks.