dde(n)							       Tcl Built-In Commands							    dde(n)

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NAME

       dde - Execute a Dynamic Data Exchange command

SYNOPSIS

       package require dde 1.1

       dde servername ?topic?

       dde ?-async? command service topic ?data?
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DESCRIPTION

       This  command allows an application to send Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) command when running under Microsoft Windows. Dynamic Data Exchange
       is a mechanism where applications can exchange raw data. Each DDE transaction needs a service name and a topic. Both the service  name  and
       topic  are application defined; Tcl uses the service name TclEval, while the topic name is the name of the interpreter given by dde server-
       name. Other applications have their own service names and topics. For instance, Microsoft Excel has the service name Excel.

       The only option to the dde command is:

       -async Requests asynchronous invocation.  This is valid only for the execute subcommand. Normally, the dde execute subcommand  waits  until
	      the command completes, returning appropriate error messages. When the -async option is used, the command returns immediately, and no
	      error information is available.

DDE COMMANDS

       The following commands are a subset of the full Dynamic Data Exchange set of commands.

       dde servername ?topic?
	      dde servername registers the interpreter as a DDE server with the service name TclEval and the topic name specified by topic.  If no
	      topic is given, dde servername returns the name of the current topic or the empty string if it is not registered as a service.

       dde execute service topic data
	      dde  execute takes the data and sends it to the server indicated by service with the topic indicated by topic. Typically, service is
	      the name of an application, and topic is a file to work on.  The data field is given  to	the  remote  application.  Typically,  the
	      application  treats the data field as a script, and the script is run in the application. The command returns an error if the script
	      did not run. If the -async flag was used, the command returns immediately with no error.

       dde poke service topic item data
	      dde poke passes the data to the server indicated by service using the topic and item specified.  Typically, service is the  name	of
	      an  application.	 topic	is  application specific but can be a command to the server or the name of a file to work on.  The item is
	      also application specific and is often not used, but it must always be non-null.	The data field is given to the remote application.

       dde request service topic item
	      dde request is typically used to get the value of something; the value of a cell in Microsoft Excel or the text of  a  selection	in
	      Microsoft  Word.	service is typically the name of an application, topic is typically the name of the file, and item is application-
	      specific. The command returns the value of item as defined in the application.

       dde services service topic
	      dde services returns a list of service-topic pairs that currently exist on the machine. If service and topic are both  null  strings
	      ({}),  then  all	service-topic  pairs currently available on the system are returned. If service is null and topic is not, then all
	      services with the specified topic are returned. If service is not null and topic is, all topics for a given service are returned. If
	      both are not null, if that service-topic pair currently exists, it is returned; otherwise, null is returned.

       dde eval topic cmd ?arg arg ...?
	      dde  eval  evaluates  a command and its arguments using the interpreter specified by topic. The DDE service must be the TclEval ser-
	      vice.  This command can be used to replace send on Windows.

DDE AND TCL

       A Tcl interpreter always has a service name of TclEval.	Each different interpreter of all running Tcl applications must be given a  unique
       name  specified	by  dde servername. Each interp is available as a DDE topic only if the dde servername command was used to set the name of
       the topic for each interp. So a dde services TclEval {} command will return a list of service-topic pairs, where each of the currently run-
       ning interps will be a topic.

       When  Tcl  processes a dde execute command, the data for the execute is run as a script in the interp named by the topic of the dde execute
       command.

       When Tcl processes a dde request command, it returns the value of the variable given in the dde command in the context of the interp  named
       by  the dde topic. Tcl reserves the variable $TCLEVAL$EXECUTE$RESULT for internal use, and dde request commands for that variable will give
       unpredictable results.

       An external application which wishes to run a script in Tcl should have that script store its result in a variable,  run  the  dde  execute
       command, and the run dde request to get the value of the variable.

       When using DDE, be careful to ensure that the event queue is flushed using either update or vwait.  This happens by default when using wish
       unless a blocking command is called (such as exec without adding the & to place the process in the background).	 If  for  any  reason  the
       event queue is not flushed, DDE commands may hang until the event queue is flushed.  This can create a deadlock situation.

SEE ALSO

       tk(n), winfo(n), send(n)

KEYWORDS

       application, dde, name, remote execution

Tcl									8.1								    dde(n)