Chainfunction

Temporarily transfers control to an external program

Operating System Functionsfunctiondocumented

Syntax

Declare Function Chain ( ByRef program As Const String ) As Long

Parameters

Name		Description
`program`		The file name (including file path) of the program (executable) to transfer control to.

Return value

Returns the external program's exit code if executed successfully, or negative one (-1) otherwise.

Description

Transfers control over to an external program. When the program exits, execution resumes immediately after the call to Chain.

Remarks

Usage



result = Chain( program )

Platform Differences

Linux requires the program name case matches the real name of the file. Windows and DOS are case insensitive. The program chained may be case sensitive for its command line parameters.
Path separators in Linux are forward slashes / . Windows uses backward slashes \ but it allows for forward slashes . DOS uses backward \ slashes.
Exit code is limited to 8 bits in DOS.

Differences from QB

Common does not allow to keep the values of certain variables when chaining programs with Chain.

Example

#ifdef __FB_LINUX__

    Dim As String program = "./program"

#else

    Dim As String program = "program.exe"

#endif



Print "Running " & program & "..."

If (Chain(program) <> 0) Then

    Print program & " not found!"

End If

Reference

Documented in KeyPgChain.html