Example - Case 1

Suppose you issue the dir command in your automation script to see the available files and directories in the
D:\Development directory.

        
          	command	variable	time out	charset
execute command	dir D:\Development	var_output	400	UTF-8
        
    

Result

Instead of writing the dir output to the var_output variable, you can write the output to a file by using the redirect command output (>) operator.

        
          	command	variable	time out	charset
execute command	dir D:\Development>D:\log.txt	var_output	400	UTF-8
        
    

Result

Effect

Example - Case 2

Suppose you may want to issue two commands in your automation script.

• One command is to launch an application, such as Internet Explorer, and
• the other is to see available files in a specified directory, such as D:\Development.

Additionally, these two commands must run asynchronously (without waiting for each command to finish).

        
          	command	variable	time out	charset
execute command	start "title" "C:\Program File (x86)\Internet Explore.exe"	var_output_ie	30	UTF-8
execute command	dir D:\Development	var_output_dir	30	UTF-8
        
    

Result

• This built-in action is supported only on Windows test controllers, it is effective on Windows test platforms.

• The execute command action can be invoked to execute any of the following:

  • Command line utilities.
  • Any application that can be invoked from the command line.

• execute command works synchronously: that is, it causes test execution to wait for the specified command to finish before control is returned to the test. To execute commands asynchronously – that is, launch a command or application and continue with the test run without waiting – precede the contents of your command with the start command (see Example - Case 2).

  Tip:
  You can view the full syntax of the start command by typing start /? in the command prompt window.

• If you want to write the command output to a file, rather than to the variable defined in the variable argument, use the redirect command output (>) operator in your command string. For example, to redirect a directory listing to the file dirlist.txt:

  Action lines

          
            	command	variable		
  execute command	dir > dirlist.txt	x		
          
      

  (Note that the output is fully directed to the file, and that the variable, while still a required argument, remains empty, or at its previous value.)

• This action supports the <ignore> modifier. If the string <ignore> is present as the value of any of the arguments, or any argument contains an expression that evaluates to <ignore>, the action is skipped during execution.