i was just wondering if i could have like a main program that runs for like hours at a time and then a small program that is called when needed that sends a command to the big program to tell it it has something extra to do (eg. export data) so basicall the small program can be used remotely...

is this possible and what kind of approach would i need to take

Regards
Dal

This sort of thing is possible, but it's not easy. I've done a bit of Googling, and as far as I could see, you've 4 options:

1. Use files, which isn't great, but write something to a file using one program, then the other reads it from the same file & does what it needs to do. It's far from interactive & not really suitable for what you're asking.

2. Have the main program, and then fork off a child process which is your small applet to communicate with the main program. The parent knows of the child, and the child can communicate with the parent. Loook here for details: www.gnu.org

3. Have 2 seperate programs, and they can communiate using Pipes (unsure this is available on Windows). If the child has the process ID of the parent, it can do popen() to communiate with the parent. See here: www.ee.oulu.fi

4. Shared memory. An option, not great though.

This isn't something I've ever done, so I'm no great help I'm afraid

GF