Names of external processes, and subprocess communication

Alan Hewat, ILL Grenoble (starnet!apple!ill.fr!hewat)
01 Apr 1994 11:03:23 +0000

I know how to open a simple external process (like gnuplot), write
instructions to it and read what it sends back. In this way I can use
MetaCard to make a nice GUI to what was a strictly command line app.

But suppose I want to open an xterm window (in tek mode) and start
up a process (plotek) within that window. I can do something like:

open process "xterm -t -e plotek"

Now MetaCard reports only one process open (with the long name
between the " " !), while UNIX of course knows (ps -e) there are two
processes, called xterm and plotek.

How do I write an instruction to plotek ? If I try to use MetaCard
it is apparently sent to xterm, not plotek as I want.

I tried using shell("ps -e") to find the processId of plotek, but of
course if I try to write to that processId, MetaCard says that it
is not open.

Alan Hewat, ILL Grenoble, FRANCE (hewat@ill.fr) Fax (France=33).76.48.39.06