All -

I was asked to work on a project converting some weather data. The
program used to convert the data is written in Quick Basic. I am only a
novice programmer and while I can see from the .BAS file what is
happening, I don't have the time bandwidth to rewrite the program in VB
..NET and I'm not sure it would do a proper conversion even if I did.

The compiled QB program asks for three inputs... 1) source file
location (string), 2) interval for averaging (int) and 3) output
location (string).

My question for anyone with Quick Basic experience is this - is there a
way to 'fake' this user input so that I could call the old QB program
from and 'pass' the input parameters programmatically such that the QB
program will think I'm manually responding to the prompts??

Many thanks in advance -
Danielle

This newsgroup's subject is Visual Basic, and it is mostly limited to 
classic VB... that is Microsoft Visual Basic Versions 1 - 6.  Thus it deals 
neither with QuickBasic nor VB.NET. You didn't say, but I'm guessing you are 
asking about calling a Quick Basic program from VB.NET. My other guess would 
be that the answer to that question is "no way."

But, to get a definitive answer, you need to locate a newsgroup that deals 
with the software you are using... there are a number of microsoft.public... 
newsgroups that deal with VB.NET, accessible from the free news server 
news.microsoft.com. You're more likely to get an answer there than in a 
newsgroup that deals with Quick Basic because you are really asking a VB.NET 
question, if I am guessing correctly.

Precise and concise questions will always have the best chance of getting a 
correct answer.

 Larry

"Danielle" <wxbuff@aol.com> wrote in message 
news:1169093462.897552.72550@q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> All -
>
> I was asked to work on a project converting some weather data. The
> program used to convert the data is written in Quick Basic. I am only a
> novice programmer and while I can see from the .BAS file what is
> happening, I don't have the time bandwidth to rewrite the program in VB
> .NET and I'm not sure it would do a proper conversion even if I did.
>
> The compiled QB program asks for three inputs... 1) source file
> location (string), 2) interval for averaging (int) and 3) output
> location (string).
>
> My question for anyone with Quick Basic experience is this - is there a
> way to 'fake' this user input so that I could call the old QB program
> from and 'pass' the input parameters programmatically such that the QB
> program will think I'm manually responding to the prompts??
>
> Many thanks in advance -
> Danielle
> 

In response to the post:
 On 17 Jan 2007 20:11:02 -0800, "Danielle" <wxbuff@aol.com>
stated...and I replied:

>All -
>
>I was asked to work on a project converting some weather data. The
>program used to convert the data is written in Quick Basic. I am only a
>novice programmer and while I can see from the .BAS file what is
>happening, I don't have the time bandwidth to rewrite the program in VB
>.NET and I'm not sure it would do a proper conversion even if I did.
>
>The compiled QB program asks for three inputs... 1) source file
>location (string), 2) interval for averaging (int) and 3) output
>location (string).
>
>My question for anyone with Quick Basic experience is this - is there a
>way to 'fake' this user input so that I could call the old QB program
>from and 'pass' the input parameters programmatically such that the QB
>program will think I'm manually responding to the prompts??
>
>Many thanks in advance -
>Danielle

Most of the time I let those who respond to .NET posts reply with the
standard "go to a .NET group" and let it go at that.  This post
however, I felt needed an additional comment.

I'm not sure in what environment (Linux, Windows 3.1, IBM CICS...)
you're running the program.  But, if the original program was not
written to accept the inputs as command parameters, you'll find it
nearly impossible to pass this data without some program that will
start the QB program (without waiting for it to complete), then watch
for the input requests to then pass the requested data (With something
like SendKeys).

It reminds me of the scripts I used to write for ProComm when
accessing BBS's.  Where you coded a "Watch for" and responded with the
appropriate reply.

I'd say, if you have the source code, and the compiler, you should try
modifying the program to accept in-line command parameters.
Otherwise, let your up-line know it will take additional effort.

Good luck,
Shell

Shell -

Thanks for your suggestions. I did also post to the .NET group. I
didn't realize that this group was VB 1-6 and had seen other QBasic
related posts from earlier.  I got very similar feedback from the .NET
group - that my best course of action might be to rewrite to accept the
command line inputs. This seems feasible as the there are only three
inputs needed.

Thanks again!
Danielle