Is there a way to suppress showing the command window when running a console application on Windows XP?
Details: I am calling a (console-based) program from Vim. I would like to avoid the command window being shown every time I do this.
Try start /B <program name> to start the program without a new window.
Did you try shell.vim?
The xolox#shell#execute() function
This function enables other Vim
plug-ins to execute external commands
in the background (i.e.
asynchronously) without opening a
command prompt window on Windows.
i can't believe no one has suggested simply using :silent
for example, I have the following in my .vimrc (gvim on Win7)
"open windows explorer to the directory of the current file
:map <leader>ex :silent !Explorer %:p:h<CR>
When I didn’t want to see the output of external commands called from the Vim command line, I would prepend them with :silent. However, this results in a command window momentarily flashing on screen when running GVim under MS Windows. After a short while, I got annoyed by this behaviour so I researched alternative solutions (which is how I came across this question).
The best solution I came up with was to use Vim’s inbuilt system function which runs shell commands without opening an external command window. While the output of the shell command is not printed, its exit status is conveniently available via v:shell_error. It also has the advantage that it’s portable across (all) platforms.
Example (the echo statement should print 0 if C:\Windows exists):
call system("dir c:\windows")
echo v:shell_error
You could maybe use some autohotkey script of this kind:
Loop {
WinWait, my command window title
WinHide
}
I was trying to use git-bash as my shell from vim on Windows but having the command prompt open whenever a command was run, as you described. My eventual solution was to install the plugin xolox/vim-shell and add the following snippet to .vimrc:
if has('win32')
set shell=bash\ -c
set shellcmdflag=
set shellxquote='
set shellquote=
set shellredir=>
set noshelltemp "This prevents an external window from opening.
endif
This utility will also do the job:
http://www.ntwind.com/software/utilities/hstart.html
Related
I have a small utility script called clear.bat that does some housekeeping work on my sources.
It is a .bat file so that I could easily double-click it in Windows Explorer.
Sometimes, I find it more handy to execute it from my Git bash (msysgit, if this matters).
To do this, I type
cmd
clear.bat
exit
cmd turns my Git bash into a normal cmd window where I could easily execute my batch. When I type exit, the cmd environment is terminated and I'm back in my Git bash.
Could this be achieved in an easier way?
I tried cmd /C clean.bat since the docs say
Syntax
CMD [charset] [options]
CMD [charset] [options] [/c Command]
CMD [charset] [options] [/k Command]
Options
/C Run Command and then terminate
/K Run Command and then return to the CMD prompt.
This is useful for testing, to examine variables
Edit:
Just noticed that the post is broken.
What I want is to execute clean.bat from within the Git bash without having to type the three commands above (cmd, clear.bat, exit). I just want to execute the .bat file from within my Git bash. Obvious way would be to create a separate .sh file that does the same work but this will lead to double code.
Edit 2:
When I execute cmd /C clean.bat, the Git bash turns into a plain CMD environment and only displays the prompt. The file clean.bat does not get executed. It's the same as if I just type cmd.
Also, adding a /debug switch does literally nothing. Seems like only cmd gets evaluated and all further parameters are getting ignored.
After playing around a bit more, I found the solution myself:
cmd "/C clean.bat"
does the trick. But I got no clue, why...
./clear.bat will do the trick.
The Git for Windows (msysGit has been superseded by Git for Windows1) FAQ says you have 3 options:
Run programs that have problems using the winpty utility. This allows you to keep using the nicer mintty terminal, but can become unwieldy if you need the workaround for many programs.
Modify the shortcut for Git Bash to run bash directly without mintty so it uses the default console host and configure it for "Quick Edit", reasonable size and scroll-back and suitable unicode font. You'll still have to live with the other quirks of console host.
Install and use ConEmu.
At some point, Git for windows added support for the MSYS_NO_PATHCONV environment variable, so in addition to #eckes and #AlikElzin-kilaka solutions, you can also
MSYS_NO_PATHCONV=1 cmd /c clean.bat
In general, I prefer this solution, as it allows the code to be the closest to resembling normal bash, and there are many ways to export MSYS_NO_PATHCONV depending on your preferred situation.
Note: Git for Window's bash does not support the MSYS2 environment variable MSYS2_ARG_CONV_EXCL
The other solutions
The weird quoting solution
Why does cmd "/c clean.bat" not create other errors?
It turns out argument parsing in windows does not follow the same universal rules as it does in *nix. Instead, in windows the arguments are parsed differently based on the runtime you compile against. Basically in windows, the command line arguments are passed in as "one string" and then parsed by the runtime.
See here(archive) for more explanation than you could ever want.
E.g. cmd parses arguments differently then wscript.exe
In the end, you can hopefully find something that works with this method, and it is the most "window-esque" of the three solutions
The // method
This is pretty well explained here and simple to use, but adds an extra / which does not help readability
I like start clean, it opens a new window with cmd. This method has some benefits:
cmd.exe gets a native console
the new console has a native windows character encoding (e.g. cp1251 vs utf8)
This will work and it frees the terminal too
nohup ./nucleus.bat &
less nohup.out
I am running gvim on Windows 7.
I use this mapping to execute the current file with powershell:
nnoremap <C-q> :! & '%:p'<cr>
It works great except I can't access vim until I close the powershell window. Sometimes I want the shell to remain open so I can run additional commands or I want to access vim with the shell still open so I can check the lines where errors were generated.
Ideally (don't know if this is possible) I want to have an already open shell execute the command. So I always have vim and a shell open (on separate monitors) and I can execute the script in that same shell.
How can I achieve this?
GVIM on Windows has a special :!start command to execute the external command asynchronously; i.e. Vim doesn't wait for its return. Just replace the :! with it. See :help :!start for more information.
On Unix, such special isn't necessary; you can just append & (a shell feature) to execute the command asynchronously.
I have a small utility script called clear.bat that does some housekeeping work on my sources.
It is a .bat file so that I could easily double-click it in Windows Explorer.
Sometimes, I find it more handy to execute it from my Git bash (msysgit, if this matters).
To do this, I type
cmd
clear.bat
exit
cmd turns my Git bash into a normal cmd window where I could easily execute my batch. When I type exit, the cmd environment is terminated and I'm back in my Git bash.
Could this be achieved in an easier way?
I tried cmd /C clean.bat since the docs say
Syntax
CMD [charset] [options]
CMD [charset] [options] [/c Command]
CMD [charset] [options] [/k Command]
Options
/C Run Command and then terminate
/K Run Command and then return to the CMD prompt.
This is useful for testing, to examine variables
Edit:
Just noticed that the post is broken.
What I want is to execute clean.bat from within the Git bash without having to type the three commands above (cmd, clear.bat, exit). I just want to execute the .bat file from within my Git bash. Obvious way would be to create a separate .sh file that does the same work but this will lead to double code.
Edit 2:
When I execute cmd /C clean.bat, the Git bash turns into a plain CMD environment and only displays the prompt. The file clean.bat does not get executed. It's the same as if I just type cmd.
Also, adding a /debug switch does literally nothing. Seems like only cmd gets evaluated and all further parameters are getting ignored.
After playing around a bit more, I found the solution myself:
cmd "/C clean.bat"
does the trick. But I got no clue, why...
./clear.bat will do the trick.
The Git for Windows (msysGit has been superseded by Git for Windows1) FAQ says you have 3 options:
Run programs that have problems using the winpty utility. This allows you to keep using the nicer mintty terminal, but can become unwieldy if you need the workaround for many programs.
Modify the shortcut for Git Bash to run bash directly without mintty so it uses the default console host and configure it for "Quick Edit", reasonable size and scroll-back and suitable unicode font. You'll still have to live with the other quirks of console host.
Install and use ConEmu.
At some point, Git for windows added support for the MSYS_NO_PATHCONV environment variable, so in addition to #eckes and #AlikElzin-kilaka solutions, you can also
MSYS_NO_PATHCONV=1 cmd /c clean.bat
In general, I prefer this solution, as it allows the code to be the closest to resembling normal bash, and there are many ways to export MSYS_NO_PATHCONV depending on your preferred situation.
Note: Git for Window's bash does not support the MSYS2 environment variable MSYS2_ARG_CONV_EXCL
The other solutions
The weird quoting solution
Why does cmd "/c clean.bat" not create other errors?
It turns out argument parsing in windows does not follow the same universal rules as it does in *nix. Instead, in windows the arguments are parsed differently based on the runtime you compile against. Basically in windows, the command line arguments are passed in as "one string" and then parsed by the runtime.
See here(archive) for more explanation than you could ever want.
E.g. cmd parses arguments differently then wscript.exe
In the end, you can hopefully find something that works with this method, and it is the most "window-esque" of the three solutions
The // method
This is pretty well explained here and simple to use, but adds an extra / which does not help readability
I like start clean, it opens a new window with cmd. This method has some benefits:
cmd.exe gets a native console
the new console has a native windows character encoding (e.g. cp1251 vs utf8)
This will work and it frees the terminal too
nohup ./nucleus.bat &
less nohup.out
I've searched over the web and still can't figure it out.
I apologise if this sounds like a lazy whinging cry for help -- I really am at wit's end with this one.
I have a bash script located at:
/cygdrive/k/Linux Scripts/Scripts/filter.sh
I've copied the Cygwin.bat to filter.bat, and changed it as follows:
#echo off
L:
chdir L:\Cygwin\bin
bash --login "/cygdrive/k/Linux Scripts/Scripts/filter.sh amc.txt bmo.txt"
When I run filter.bat by double-clicking on it in Windows Explorer, the console flashes open momentarily and then closes. The script is OK, because it runs from the command line in the Cygwin console.
Is there a way to debug this problem?
Try running the batch file from an already-existing Command Prompt window so you can see any error messages bash might send. I'm guessing it has a problem with "/cygdrive/k/Linux Scripts/Scripts/filter.sh amc.txt bmo.txt" -- as far as it's concerned, that's one argument rather than three. Therefore I would change it to
bash --login "/cygdrive/k/Linux Scripts/Scripts/filter.sh" amc.txt bmo.txt
I'm writing a ksh script and I have to run a executable at a separate Command Prompt window.
xdg-open is a similar command line app in linux.
see https://superuser.com/questions/38984/linux-equivalent-command-for-open-command-on-mac-windows for details on its use.
I believe you mean something like xterm -e your.sh &
Don't forget the final &
maybe it´s not a seperate window that gets started, but you can run some executables in background using "&"
e.g.
./myexecutable &
means your script will not wait until myexecutable has finished but goes on immediately. maybe this is what you are looking for.
regards
xdg-open is a good equivalent for the MS windows commandline start command:
xdg-open file
opens that file or url with its default application
xdg-open .
opens the currect folder in the default file manager
One of the most useful terminal session programs is screen.
screen -dmS title executable
You can list all your screen sessions by running
screen -ls
And you can connect to your created screen session (also allowing multiple simultaneous/synchronized sessions) by running
screen -x title
This will open up the emulated terminal in the current window where executable is running. You can detach a screen session by pressing C-a C-d, and can reattach as many times as you wish.
If you really want your program started in a new terminal window, you could do something like this:
xterm yourtextmodeprogram
or
gnome-terminal -e yourtextmodeprogram
or
konsole -e mc
Trouble is that you cannot count on a particular terminal emulator being installed, so (again: if you really want to do this) you would need to look for the common ones and then execute the first one encountered.
As Joachim mentioned: The normal way to do this is to background the command (read about shell job control somewhere, if you want to dig deeper).
There are also cases where you want to start a persistent shell, i.e. a shell session which lives on when you close the terminal window. There are two ways to do this:
batch-oriented: nohup command-to-run &
interactive: screen
if you want a new windows, just start a new instance of your terminal application: in kde it's
konsole -e whatever
i'm sure the Gnome terminal has similar options
Some have recommended starting it in the background with &, but beware that that will still send all console output from the application you launch to the terminal you launched it from. Additionally, if you close the initial terminal the program you loaded will end.
If you're using a desktop environment like KDE or GNOME, I'd check the alt+f2 launching apps (gnome-open is the one for GNOME, I don't know the name of the KDE app) and see if you can pass them the command to launch as an argument.
Also, if your intention is to launch a daemon, you should check the nohup documentation.
I used nohup as the following command and it works:
nohup <your command> &
then press enter and enter!
don't forget the last &
for example, I ran a python code listening to port 5000:
nohup python3 -W ignore mycode.py &
then I made sure of running by netstat -tulnp | grep :5000 and it was ok.