execute-program

This task executes an external program. The program can be started in different ways:

  • Without any argument, the program is executed inside the task. This means that the task hands over execution to the program. Only when the program is finished will the task continue.

  • Using background will start the program in the background, adding an ampersand & to the program. This means that the task will continue immediately after the program is started. Since the task then terminates, there is no further job control on the program. Furthermore, all program output will appear along with the task and then the shell.

  • Using xterm will start the a new XTerm and execute the program there as a command. This means that the task will continue immediately after the program is started. Since the task then terminates, there is no further job control on the XTerm. All output will of course happen in the new XTerm.

-b | --background  run program in background
-h | --help        print help screen and exit
-t | --title TITLE title for the XTerm, default: program name
-x | --xterm       start a new XTerm and execute program

The actual program and its arguments should be provided after -- in the command line. All characters here will be simply used to execute the program.

Examples

The following example executes ls in the current directory (where the application was started from).

execute-program — ls

The following example executes ls in the current directory (where the application was started from). It runs ls in the background, which causes an error since ls takes the added ampersand & as an argument.

execute-program --background — ls

The following example starts the editor vi with the file build.sh in a new XTerm.

execute-program --xterm — vi build.sh

Requirements

To start a program in a new XTerm, the task start-xterm must be available. This task has its own configuration settings, e.g. to set the XTerm executable.