dde(n)							       Tcl Bundled Packages							    dde(n)

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NAME

       dde - Execute a Dynamic Data Exchange command

SYNOPSIS

       package require dde 1.3

       dde servername ?-force? ?-handler proc? ?--? ?topic?

       dde execute ?-async? service topic data

       dde poke service topic item data

       dde request ?-binary? service topic item

       dde services service topic

       dde eval ?-async? topic cmd ?arg arg ...?
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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.

DDE COMMANDS

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

       dde servername ?-force? ?-handler proc? ?--? ?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. If
	      the given topic name is already in use, then a suffix of the form " #2" or " #3" is appended to the name to make it unique. The com-
	      mand's result will be the name actually used. The -force option is used to force registration of precisely the given topic name.

	      The -handler option specifies a Tcl procedure that will be called to process calls to the dde server. If the package has been loaded
	      into a safe interpreter then a -handler procedure must be defined. The procedure is called with all the arguments  provided  by  the
	      remote call.

       dde execute ?-async? 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 -async option requests asynchronous
	      invocation.  The command returns an error message if the script did not run, unless the -async flag was used, in which case the com-
	      mand 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 ?-binary? 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.  Normally this is interpreted to be a string with
	      terminating null.  If -binary is specified, the result is returned as a byte array.

       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 empty  strings
	      ({}),  then  all	service-topic pairs currently available on the system are returned. If service is empty and topic is not, then all
	      services with the specified topic are returned. If service is non-empty and topic is, all topics for a given service  are  returned.
	      If both are non-empty, if that service-topic pair currently exists, it is returned; otherwise, an empty string is returned.

       dde eval ?-async? 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.  The -async option requests asynchronous invocation.  The command returns an error message if the script did not  run,  unless
	      the  -async flag was used, in which case the command returns immediately with no error.  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.

EXAMPLE

       This asks Internet Explorer (which must already be running) to go to a particularly important website:
	      package require dde
	      dde execute iexplore WWW_OpenURL http://www.tcl.tk/

SEE ALSO

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

KEYWORDS

       application, dde, name, remote execution

dde									1.3								    dde(n)