Command line length

[Shawn K. Hall]

Hello All,

I designed a vb class that parses the contents of the command line and
keys at startup so you can determine *exactly* how the app was
started. THe problem is that when you have a file association and you
clik on more than so many files (where the command line would be in
excess of some 265 (or something) characters in length) the app will
*not* load and an error displays saying "access to the specified
device, path or file is denied" (this also occurs using a "send to"
link).

I can't conceive of *why* this would occur in VB. In a C++ app I've
never seen this happen (though, I have never needed nor tried in C++
to parse the command line). Is there a solution *anywhere* that anyone
can think of? I really hate the idea of my app not working simply
because the command line was too long.

TIA,

Shawn K. Hall
Programmer / Analyst
*Please* post/respond in the newsgroups!

[Klaus H. Probst]

Hi Shawn,


> I designed a vb class that parses the contents of the command line and
> keys at startup so you can determine *exactly* how the app was
> started. THe problem is that when you have a file association and you
> clik on more than so many files (where the command line would be in
> excess of some 265 (or something) characters in length) the app will
> *not* load and an error displays saying "access to the specified
> device, path or file is denied" (this also occurs using a "send to"
> link).

I can confirm this problem for you -- it happens in Win9x, NT4 and Win2000.

Unfortunately, I believe the only way to circumvent this is to write a shell
extension that works with the shell namespace (as opposed to paths). Doing
it in C++ (using the standard C argument array passed to main() or the
GetCommandLine() API) doesn't help, as you still get the same error. It's
not a problem with VB or VC -- it's possibly a problem with how Windows
handles environment space for a process.

.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Klaus H. Probst, MVP
http://www.vbbox.com/
http://www.mvps.org/ccrp/

Please post/reply to the newsgroup(s)

[Shawn K. Hall]

Thank you Klaus,

Looks like the class will simply have that limitation. I can't expect
everyone that downloads it to be able to work with namespace
extensions for each of their projects, so it looks like that's a real
end-game.

It would be nice if instead of popping an error that doesn't do
anything at all to explain the actual problem to the user that it
would enable the program to still load but with some sort of error
contant (like CL_TOO_MUCH_DATA) on GetCommandLine().

--
Shawn K. Hall
Programmer / Analyst
*Please* post/respond in the newsgroups!


"Klaus H. Probst" <kprobst@vbbox.com> wrote in message
news:390e0583$1@news.devx.com...
> Hi Shawn,
>
>
> > I designed a vb class that parses the contents of the command line
and
> > keys at startup so you can determine *exactly* how the app was
> > started. THe problem is that when you have a file association and
you
> > clik on more than so many files (where the command line would be
in
> > excess of some 265 (or something) characters in length) the app
will
> > *not* load and an error displays saying "access to the specified
> > device, path or file is denied" (this also occurs using a "send
to"
> > link).
>
> I can confirm this problem for you -- it happens in Win9x, NT4 and
Win2000.
>
> Unfortunately, I believe the only way to circumvent this is to write
a shell
> extension that works with the shell namespace (as opposed to paths).
Doing
> it in C++ (using the standard C argument array passed to main() or
the
> GetCommandLine() API) doesn't help, as you still get the same error.
It's
> not a problem with VB or VC -- it's possibly a problem with how
Windows
> handles environment space for a process.
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> Klaus H. Probst, MVP
> http://www.vbbox.com/
> http://www.mvps.org/ccrp/
>
> Please post/reply to the newsgroup(s)