LISP Command -- Copy File

[Gary L.]

In a lisp program I have the following line to copy a file to a new name in the same folder. It doesn't work. What is the correct format?

(sd-sys-exec "cp C:/tmp/profilexy_restart C:/tmp/profilexy_restart2")

Thanks, Gary

[clausb]

"cp" is UNIXese - you probably have Cygwin or some other UNIX toolset installed on your system, and want to execute them via sd-sys-exec.

sd-sys-exec will always execute the specified command via cmd.exe, i.e. any syntax that works in a DOS shell window, will also work in sd-sys-exec. "cp.exe" may not, depending on whether "cp.exe" is in a directory that is listed in PATH.

Anyway, the DOS equivalent of "cp" is "copy", and it's just as simple to use as "cp.exe". But then, you don't need to go through any of this platform-dependency mess. Here's a MUCH better approach:

  (oli:sd-copy-file "C:/tmp/profilexy_restart" "C:/tmp/profilexy_restart2")

See the IKIT documentation for details.

Claus

[ukawa]

Hi
I have a similar question about this thread:
I need to delete a temporary file made by my lisp: the file name is "C:\temp\1.mi"

"sd-delete-file" doesn't exists, so I think I have to use:

(oli:sd-sys-exec "del C:\temp\1.mi")

But it doesn't works and I don't understand why (in DOS shell "del C:\temp\1.mi" works).
Can I have some help, please?

Thanks in advance
Ukawa

[Andy Poulsen]

Originally Posted by ukawa

Hi
I have a similar question about this thread:
I need to delete a temporary file made by my lisp: the file name is "C:\temp\1.mi"

"sd-delete-file" doesn't exists, so I think I have to use:

(oli:sd-sys-exec "del C:\temp\1.mi")

But it doesn't works and I don't understand why (in DOS shell "del C:\temp\1.mi" works).

The main reason it isn't working is that the backslash character "\" is used in lisp to "escape" characters, which allows you to use special characters inside your text strings. Using the backslash basically tells the lisp interpreter to treat the character following the backslash as a regular character and not anything special.

In your particular case above, the lisp interpreter reads the characters following the backslashes as regular characters (which they are, in this case). So "del c:\temp\1.mi" gets changed by the lisp interpreter to "del c:temp1.mi" -- does this make sense? To include the backslashes in the string, you need to "escape" the backslashes themselves i.e. we need to use *two* of them! so using "del c:\\temp\\1.mi" should work for you.

And while sd-delete-file does not exist, there is a standard lisp function delete-file that should do what you need. If you're going to use it, you need to put the filename in quotes, and if you're going to use backslashes, you will again need to escape them. However, using forward slashes will work nicely (and is usually more convenient as well). I always prefer using forward-slash notation. So

(delete-file "c:/temp/1.mi")

or

(delete-file "c:\\temp\\1.mi")

should work for you.

I hope this makes sense...

Good luck!

andy

[ukawa]

Wow, thanks for the quick responses, your explanation is extremely clear and useful.
Both the solutions work perfectly.
Once again, I forgot we have modeling lisp language, AS WELL AS standard lisp language.

However, thanks so much, I have really appreciated your help.
Best Regards
Ukawa