You can execute a local application and start communications by providing the following information in the start action statement.
•The local keyword
•The application program name specified in the application declaration
•The name by which the operating system recognizes the application or a TOKEN,
•The optional input buffer size, followed by any optional parameters
The parameters that you provide are string values that are passed to the local application program as soon as it is started. For example, you might pass file information that the program needs to begin processing, such as:
return StartDatabase is
start local Database "query.exe" "-m 8192 history.dat"
This statement starts a local application named Database. The name of this program, as recognized by the operating system, is QUERY.EXE. The input buffer size is set to 8192 bytes, which the size of a largest single command that can be sent to the local application. The input buffer size parameter is not passed onto the local application itself. If the "-m" parameter is not present, then the input buffer size defaults to 4096 bytes, unless the local application itself set the size via the variable "InputBufferSize". When the program is started, ESL passes the parameter string to the program, which identifies the database to be queried.
In your start action statement, if literal values are used for the program name and parameter string values, then they must be enclosed in quotation marks.
With ESL Release 9.20, the facility to use a TOKEN in place of the executable file name was introduced. By using a TOKEN, the application can be configured at runtime to communicate with different versions of the local application, allowing for the same application to be used in different environments. A TOKEN is any single word, which can be either a literal, so should be enclosed in quotation marks, or held within a string variable or constant. For example:
return StartDatabase is
start local Database "oracle" "-m 8192"
To convert the TOKEN into a executable file name, a MAPENTRY must be specified within the ESLConfig.ini file, so the for the above example:
MAPENTRY.oracle=eslsqlo8.exe
or
MAPENTRY.oracle=eslsqlor.exe
TOKEN and the MAPENTRY are matched without case sensitivity, so the following will also work correctly:
MAPENTRY.ORACLE=eslsqlo7.exe
