Tool does not make it easy to diagnosis command line tool failures

[David Hoffer]

I am trying to simply create a label in StarTeam using VisualBuild(VB). My command works fine from the command line but not from VisualBuild.

VB does not give me any way to see what is exactly going to the command line. The tool tip that evaluates my expression is fine, but is that what is sent to the command line??!! Aparently not.

When I ask others here, that use VB, they say this is a common problem. They generally resort to working around VB by calling a batch file with the command. They have determined that VB has a very limited macro parsing, command length cabililities.

This tool is tool hard to get simple things to work.

Any suggestions, ideas?

-dh

[kinook]

Which version of Visual Build are you running? What does the expanded command look like (type Ctrl+M in the Command field to copy the value with all macros expanded, and also attach the problem .bld file)? That is the command that VBP will pass to a CreateProcess call. What is the error message reported? Be aware that if you're using redirection, piping, or command concatenation, you need to prefix the command with %DOSCMD% (see http://www.visualbuild.com/Manual/?runprogramaction.htm).

[David Hoffer]

I am using Visual Build Pro 5.7. I will try to answer the rest of your questions as soon as possible.

[David Hoffer]

In a separate case I tried using your Ctrl+M suggestion and it worked fine. I was able to paste the contents from VisualBuild into the command prompt and it worked fine; this also worked in VisualBuild.

Thanks for your help.

-dh