PawCom Application Note 104: Automating PawCom with a command line switch
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4/9/04

The MS Access front end for PawCom can accept a command line switch that you can use
to automate any process you wish.  For example, a default switch is included that
will run the refresh process then stop the application.  This is handy if you want
to schedule an automatic update at off hours.

Your can invoke the command line switch from a desktop icon or from a batch file
that you can run with the Windows scheduler.  To do this you need to build an
appropriate command line.  There are three things you need to specify:  the location
of MS Access on your system, the name of the mdb you want to run, and the name of
the switch you want to use.  To find the location of MS Access, search your system
for the file MSACCESS.EXE.  Lets suppose you find it in the following location:

	c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office2000\Office\

and lets suppose you want to run PawCom253-2k.mdb located in the folder
c:\pawcom253\ and pass it the command line switch "myswitch".  Then the command
line you would use is

"c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office2000\Office\MSAccess.exe" c:\pawcom253\pawcom253-2k.mdb /cmd "myswitch"

Note that quotes are required around the first part of this line because the path
has imbedded spaces.  The quotes tell the parser that the first part is all one
entity.  If the location of the mdb you want to run also contains spaces, then
you should put quotes around this also.  The quotes around the name of your switch
are always required.

You can easily test your command line by creating a desktop shortcut whose target
is the command line.  Try setting up a shortcut that starts PawCom on your system.

Now lets see what this does.  When PawCom starts up the Form_Open event of the
main menu does some initialization and then calls the routine CheckCommandLine().
This routine is located in the module Support Functions and the original code looks
like this:

    Public Function CheckCommandLine()
        Dim Status As Integer
        If Command = "Refresh" Then
            Status = mwReadAll()
            DoCmd.Quit
        End If
    End Function

Command is a global variable that gets passed to an Access application on startup
and contains the value of the switch you specified in quotes after /cmd in the
command line.

The routine above checks for the switch "Refresh".  If it is present it runs the
routine mwReadAll, which is equivalent to selecting Refresh from the PawCom
menu bar.  After the refresh is completed DoCmd.Quit shuts the application down.

Try modifying this routine to include your own processing.  For example,

    Public Function CheckCommandLine()
        Dim Status As Integer
        If Command = "Refresh" Then
            Status = mwReadAll()
            DoCmd.Quit
        ElseIf Command = "myswitch" Then
            MsgBox "My switch was specified."
        End If
    End Function