Re^4: Accessing PDA in cradle from Windows

First, the timestamp on the directory would be interesting but would have to be checked continualy. Also, if I have n files on the PDA, how do I know they all have been synced? It is clear MS does not want a PDA seen as a drive.

What I want to do is: given a file on the PDA, be able to run a perl script on the XP box to process the data on the PDA file. One example is to extract info from a text file and insert portions into a databse on a web server. Another is to sort data in a text file on the PDA. I do not have room for perl on the PDA.

Yes, Microsoft's design clearly is to use synced files. Maybe what I need to do is to find a tool to start a process when it detects that a PDA has been placed in the cradle and has been fully synced. I could then process a space on the synced directories and the data would be re-synced to the PDA.

I understand that it is not a good idea to do a lot of processing on flash memory because it "wears out", so maybe syncing is the best approach.

Comment on Re^4: Accessing PDA in cradle from Windows

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Re^5: Accessing PDA in cradle from Windows by gwhite (Friar) on Mar 29, 2005 at 14:22 UTC
A little script that would check the sync directory every 10 minutes or so (don't know how time critical your app needs to be) and compare the current time stamps and file list with a snapshot of the previous list would be easy enough, then depending on what files had changed could kickoff another script (or call a function or load a module or ....) that would do the specific processing you need. You can also use the Excel and Access applications (several Access DB readers available for cheap) to do DB type functions on the device. I realize this isn't Perlish but it does meet the laziness factor required by better Perl programmers. g_White	[reply]

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Re^5: Accessing PDA in cradle from Windows
by gwhite (Friar) on Mar 29, 2005 at 14:22 UTC

A little script that would check the sync directory every 10 minutes or so (don't know how time critical your app needs to be) and compare the current time stamps and file list with a snapshot of the previous list would be easy enough, then depending on what files had changed could kickoff another script (or call a function or load a module or ....) that would do the specific processing you need. You can also use the Excel and Access applications (several Access DB readers available for cheap) to do DB type functions on the device. I realize this isn't Perlish but it does meet the laziness factor required by better Perl programmers.

g_White

[reply]