Bat file errorlevel in VBA (Win98 / Word97 (NL))

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Is there a way in VBA to get the ErrorLevel from a Dos bat file? I searched the Lounge for “errorlevel” but nothing uselfull came up.

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I don’t think there is a direct way to retrieve the error level, but others may prove me wrong.

Can you modify the batch file? If so, you could create a text file in the batch file with info about the error (using ECHO … > filename.txt), and open the text file in VBA.

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I don’t think there is a direct way to retrieve the error level, but others may prove me wrong.

Can you modify the batch file? If so, you could create a text file in the batch file with info about the error (using ECHO … > filename.txt), and open the text file in VBA.

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I may be nit-picking (for I have been accused of that), but a DOS BATch file does not and cannot generate an errorlevel, of itself.

On leaving a BATch file the outstanding errorlevel is that which has been set by the last program to execute before the BATch file terminates. A program may not bother to set an errorlevel, therefore it will show as zero. This errorlevel value is held withing the running copy of COMMAND.COM, or now more likely CMD.EXE, so if that terminates then it would not be possible for VBA to access it.

Unfortunately I have never used VBA so I cannot say anything further…

John

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If you SET an environment string within the BAT file based on a returned errorlevel, you can use it in VB.

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If you SET an environment string within the BAT file based on a returned errorlevel, you can use it in VB.

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I may be nit-picking (for I have been accused of that), but a DOS BATch file does not and cannot generate an errorlevel, of itself.

On leaving a BATch file the outstanding errorlevel is that which has been set by the last program to execute before the BATch file terminates. A program may not bother to set an errorlevel, therefore it will show as zero. This errorlevel value is held withing the running copy of COMMAND.COM, or now more likely CMD.EXE, so if that terminates then it would not be possible for VBA to access it.

Unfortunately I have never used VBA so I cannot say anything further…

John

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The following is a hacked modification of the example in Help for the Environ function.

You could try tweaking it to see if you can ge tthe value of ErrorLevel.

Option Explicit

Private Sub GetEnvironVariable()
    Const strTarget As String = "Path"
    Dim EnvString As String
    Dim Indx As Long
    Dim Msg As String
    Dim PathLen As Long
    Indx = 1
    Do
        EnvString = Environ(Indx)
        If Left(EnvString, Len(strTarget) + 1) = strTarget & "=" Then
            PathLen = Len(Environ(strTarget))
            Msg = strTarget & " entry = " & Indx & " and length = " & PathLen
            Exit Do
        Else
            Indx = Indx + 1
        End If
    Loop Until EnvString = ""
    If PathLen > 0 Then
        MsgBox Msg
    Else
        MsgBox "No " & strTarget & " environment variable exists."
    End If
End Sub

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You guys educated me once again! A big to all of you.

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Just curious:

Why do you think the example inflicts a loop when a simple

Environ("Path")

would have worked as well?
(In my Win98SE the environment variables seem to be forced into upper-case)

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I just hacked the example in the Help file, I did not fix the code.
The example is very poor code, a not uncommon thing in the Help files.

The comparison, in proper code, does have to do a case insensitive compare.

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I just hacked the example in the Help file, I did not fix the code.
The example is very poor code, a not uncommon thing in the Help files.

The comparison, in proper code, does have to do a case insensitive compare.

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Just curious:

Why do you think the example inflicts a loop when a simple

Environ("Path")

would have worked as well?
(In my Win98SE the environment variables seem to be forced into upper-case)

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The following is a hacked modification of the example in Help for the Environ function.

You could try tweaking it to see if you can ge tthe value of ErrorLevel.

Option Explicit

Private Sub GetEnvironVariable()
    Const strTarget As String = "Path"
    Dim EnvString As String
    Dim Indx As Long
    Dim Msg As String
    Dim PathLen As Long
    Indx = 1
    Do
        EnvString = Environ(Indx)
        If Left(EnvString, Len(strTarget) + 1) = strTarget & "=" Then
            PathLen = Len(Environ(strTarget))
            Msg = strTarget & " entry = " & Indx & " and length = " & PathLen
            Exit Do
        Else
            Indx = Indx + 1
        End If
    Loop Until EnvString = ""
    If PathLen > 0 Then
        MsgBox Msg
    Else
        MsgBox "No " & strTarget & " environment variable exists."
    End If
End Sub

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