Question

task = [NSTask new];
[task setLaunchPath:@"/bin/sh"];
[task setArguments:[NSArray arrayWithObject:@"/applications/jarvis/brain/server.sh"]];
[task setCurrentDirectoryPath:@"/"];

NSPipe *outputPipe = [NSPipe pipe];
[task setStandardInput:[NSPipe pipe]];
[task setStandardOutput:outputPipe];

[task launch];

NSMutableString *outputString = [NSMutableString string];
while ([outputString rangeOfString:@"Jarvis>"].location == NSNotFound) {
    [outputString appendString:[[[NSString alloc] initWithData:[[outputPipe fileHandleForReading] readDataToEndOfFile] encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding] autorelease]];
     }

NSArray* substrings = [outputString componentsSeparatedByString:@"Jarvis>"];
NSString* finalCharlieOutputNSTask = [substrings lastObject];
NSSpeechSynthesizer * syn = [[NSSpeechSynthesizer alloc] init];
[syn startSpeakingString:finalCharlieOutputNSTask]; 
self.charlieOutput.stringValue = finalCharlieOutputNSTask;

Ok, so that’s my code. It launches an SH file and reads the output. BUT, I want it to wait until “Jarvis>” appears in the string before saying and printing the result. But, it seems like with the while loop, my code freezes there. Without it it reads the normal output of launching the server.sh file, but the whole thing. Any ideas why this doesn’t work?

Here is the Server.sh file:

echo Starting Jarvis Program D.
ALICE_HOME=.
SERVLET_LIB=lib/servlet.jar
ALICE_LIB=lib/aliceserver.jar
JS_LIB=lib/js.jar

# Set SQL_LIB to the location of your database driver.
SQL_LIB=lib/mysql_comp.jar

# These are for Jetty; you will want to change these if you are using a different http server.
 HTTP_SERVER_LIBS=lib/org.mortbay.jetty.jar

 PROGRAMD_CLASSPATH=$SERVLET_LIB:$ALICE_LIB:$JS_LIB:$SQL_LIB:$HTTP_SERVER_LIBS
 java -classpath $PROGRAMD_CLASSPATH -Xms64m -Xmx128m org.alicebot.server.net.AliceServer $1

Answer 1

Elijah, edit your code to look like this:

...
[task launch];

NSMutableString *outputString = [NSMutableString string];
while ([outputString rangeOfString:@"Jarvis>"].location == NSNotFound) {
    [outputString appendString:[[[NSString alloc] initWithData:[[outputPipe fileHandleForReading] readDataToEndOfFile] encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding] autorelease];
}

if ([task isRunning]) {
    [task terminate];
}

NSArray *subStrings = [outputString componentsSeparatedByString:@"Jarvis>"];
...

This code within the loop will successively read output data from your file and append it to the current output, and stop reading when @”Jarvis>” is found (it will also kill the task after a @”Jarvis>” is found, so it doesn’t keep running forever).