Run .exe and send input

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

Hi Monks!

I have an exe I need to be able to automatically run and send an "enter" followed by an alt+F4 (close). Here's what I have so far:

use strict;
use warnings;

use lib 'f:\scripts524';
use English;

my $cmd='CreateFile.exe';
my $pid = open CMD, '|-', $cmd or die $!;

sleep 2;
print CMD "\r";
print CMD "\n";
print CMD "\f";

print CMD hex '6B';

print CMD oct 153;

close CMD;
waitpid($pid,0);
[download]

My exe runs, but isn't getting the automated input. I haven't had much luck in my research so far. Is this even possible?

Comment on Run .exe and send input Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Run .exe and send input by rjt (Curate) on Oct 29, 2019 at 21:47 UTC
Windows GUI applications do not typically take their input from standard input, so this won't work. You could probably do this with Win32::API, but even though Perl is my favorite language and this is perlmonks.org, in this case I would recommend AutoHotKey, as it makes this sort of interaction stupidly easy, and you'll find a lot more documentation and examples online. ~~Untested.~~Tested. `^F5:: run, CreateFile.exe WinWaitActive, CreateFile, ,2 if ErrorLevel { MsgBox, WinWaitActive timed out. return } else { send, {Enter} WinClose } return` [download] Note that `WinWaitActive` expects the window title, which is not necessarily the same as the executable. You can match on other criteria as well. Run the script, and then you can trigger the execution/Enter/close at will with `Ctrl-F5`. There are other activation methods you can use, but the hotkey approach is easy to debug. I also changed your logic to wait 2 seconds for the window to activate, rather than just `sleep`ing for 2 seconds and hoping for the best, but this is just an example to get you started. AHK Documentation	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Run .exe and send input by stevieb (Canon) on Oct 29, 2019 at 21:26 UTC
This almost appears as though you want something to occur behind the user's back, and without their knowledge, including creating a file that they may not know about. I don't use Windows often, but I know an Alt-F4 silently closes a Window. Am I correct in these assumptions? If not, could you please explain what it is you're really trying to do here so that myself and other Monks aren't assuming you're trying to do something nefarious? (We see questions to that degree periodically).	[reply]
Re^2: Run .exe and send input by ksublondie (Friar) on Oct 29, 2019 at 21:49 UTC
Yes, you are correct in that I need this to occur behind the user's back and no, this is not nefarious. We have a 3rd party app that uses a unique keyfile on the workstation. This exe creates that file. We'd like to convert these workstations to a vmware appstack environment, so I need the ability to run this exe to create these keyfiles dynamically as needed.	[reply]
Re: Run .exe and send input by GrandFather (Saint) on Oct 30, 2019 at 00:58 UTC
Take a look at Win32::GuiTest. It provides ways to find and manage GUI windows such as WaitWindow(...) and SendKeys(...). Optimising for fewest key strokes only makes sense transmitting to Pluto or beyond	[reply]