Create a wrapper for an executable in GH component

Hi Everyone,

I am trying to make a wrapper for an executable.

Firstly about the executable: Once its open the following appears as you can see I need to enter an input between 1 and 4.

Once I've done that I then need to enter another input between 1 and 8.

After this the executable will create a textfile from which I need to read some values back into Grasshopper.

I'm having a lot of issues with how to open this executable and then enter the values from GH (Using a virtual keyboard?) I've tried the code below in Python

import os

os.system("C:\EnergyPlusV8-1-0\PreProcess\CalcSoilSurfTemp.exe")

but I get an error and the command window closes immediately. I'm a bit lost on how to do this can anyone please point me in the right direction? I am using Python but if you know how to do this in C# or VB it would also be helpful.

Thankyou!

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mostapha Sadeghipour Roudsari on March 17, 2015 at 8:53am

Hi Anton,

I'm not sure how virtual keyboard will work for you but to run the line try this:

import os
os.system("C:/EnergyPlusV8-2-6/PreProcess/CalcSoilSurfTemp/CalcSoilSurfTemp.exe")

You are trying the wrong filepath and also you need to use "/" or "\\" or put an r before the address in the filepath.

Hope it helps,

Mostapha

Permalink Reply by Mostapha Sadeghipour Roudsari on March 17, 2015 at 8:55am

Also as far as I can see there is a batch file "RunCalcSoilSurfTemp.bat" that should let you pass the arguments from the command line.

Permalink Reply by Anton Szilasi on March 17, 2015 at 9:48pm

Hi Mostpha

Thanks that line works the issue is now that I need to work out how to write a BAt file so that CalcSoilSurfTemp.exe uses the epw file.

Permalink Reply by Mostapha Sadeghipour Roudsari on March 19, 2015 at 10:37pm

Hi Anton, Try something similar to lines below in a bat file. You can pass the arguments using echo. In this example I'm sending 2 and 3 as inputs:

(
echo 2
echo 3
) |
CalcSoilSurfTemp.exe weatherFilePath

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on March 17, 2015 at 10:35am

This are some seriously sexy options Anton.

I'm running a test now with a console app mockup and C#. I'll let you know what transpires.

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on March 17, 2015 at 11:59am

I'm not getting anywhere invoking the app directly from C#. I attached the app here in case someone else wants to do some testing. It asks for two keypresses, then writes a file called output.txt in the same folder and exits.

Attachments:

ConsoleTestApplication.zip, 3 KB

Permalink Reply by Anton Szilasi on March 17, 2015 at 9:49pm

Hi David

Thanks for your reply, Sorry I dont really understand what you are trying to do here. Using Mostapha's tips Ive now got the exe opening but I dont know the best way to generate key events in Python in Grasshopper could you point me in the right direction?

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on March 20, 2015 at 1:41am

I didn't have your app, so I couldn't test anything. So I wrote this small console test app. I didn't manage to send keystrokes successfully though.

Permalink Reply by Anton Szilasi on March 24, 2015 at 8:15pm

Just for everyone's future reference the best way to approach this is to create a bat file which then opens a text that contains the key strokes an explanation of this can be seen here:

http://steve-jansen.github.io/guides/windows-batch-scripting/part-4..., you need to use redirection to send inputs into a exe.

Permalink Reply by machinehistories on February 21, 2016 at 10:24am

To send a message to cmd you could create a virtual com port pairing and use
copy com2 con | whatever.exe
https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Serial_Programming/DOS_Programming
You could then send your commands to cmd using serial send via firefly or program it in Python. I would like to know if you got the virtual keyboard working and if so how. Thanks for the os.system command.

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