hiding console

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I am sure this is a very stupid question...but maybe I'm missing something. I use pdftotext.exe to convert PDF files to plain text. I pass the content of the PDF to a variable. I call the PDF converter from within a script

open (FILE, "$installation_folder/bin/pdftotext $path_to_PDF/$file_id 
+- |");
my $text = do { local($/); <FILE> };
[download]

This works pretty well. Now I compile my script into an exe. If a select the option Hide Console (as the script is part of a small GUI, and I don't want the console to be shown), the variable $text remains empty. (If I compile the script without hiding the console, everything is fine). What can I do? Thanks

Comment on hiding console Download Code

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Re: hiding console by kcott (Archbishop) on Feb 28, 2014 at 13:01 UTC
How do you "compile my script into an exe."? Is the "Hide Console" some sort of checkbox (or similar) provided by your compilation application or is that just a description. What OS are you using? With answers [from you] to those, a better answer [from us] may be forthcoming. In the interim, here's a guess. If you use pp with the '`--gui`' option, this may do what you want. Update: Add [from you] and [from us] as a clarification. -- Ken	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: hiding console by Anonymous Monk on Feb 28, 2014 at 13:05 UTC
I am working on Windows (7), ActiveState 5.16 and PerlApp to compile. Yes I'm using the checkbox provided by the compilation application. Thank you	[reply]
Re^3: hiding console by kcott (Archbishop) on Feb 28, 2014 at 13:15 UTC
I'm unfamiliar with "PerlApp". Maybe another monk can help you with that. The pp `--gui` option is intended for "MSWin32 platforms": a potential alternative, perhaps. -- Ken	[reply] [d/l]
Re: hiding console by rminner (Chaplain) on Feb 28, 2014 at 14:52 UTC
Just guessing - perhaps the problem will go away if you use this approach to hide the window: `BEGIN { Win32::SetChildShowWindow(0) if defined &Win32::SetChildShowWindow +; }` [download] Then of course you shouldn't be using the --gui option of whatever compiler you are using.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: hiding console by Anonymous Monk on Feb 28, 2014 at 16:41 UTC
I guess PerlApp turns to wperl when selecting the option Hide Console. This works smoothly except for SDT, which won't have any function anymore. I now opted for the module Win32::HideConsole which does the job (even if consol is lunched for some seconds)	[reply]