jsweet@ics.uci.edu (Jerry N. Sweet) (02/07/90)
Has anyone figured out a way for an MPW tool to "call" another tool (i.e. execute it and return) without resorting to a command script? To forestall the inevitable "of course you can, just read TN #xxx on sublaunching" posts, let me emphasize that I'm talking about MPW Tools here, not general Macintosh applications. I need to stay entirely within the MPW environment. I pestered Apple about this a couple of years ago. Once, I got a vague answer about something possibly happening with IPC calls in the future, which wouldn't satisfy my requirements anyway. I got another answer to the effect that Apple didn't want to permit programming interfaces to MPW. Yet another time, I was invited to recite the mantra "MPW's not UNIX" (more on this in a moment). The last time I asked this question of someone from Apple, in May, 1989, I was told that it was thought to be too hard for the programmers responsible to generalize the code so that it can be used by tools. To address the "MPW's not UNIX" business: MS-DOS isn't UNIX either, and it has the ability to permit one program to call another program and return. IMHO, it is a fundamental requirement of any operating environment, and in fact MPW has the ability - but in a very limited form, i.e. from command scripts only. I'll be happy to read arguments in opposition, but I'll be even happier if someone can shed some technical light on how to do what I want to do. :-)