how to avoid popup a window when use os.execute in lua

Question

I am using os.execute() to call other program in Lua, when program run,the cmd windows will popup for a blink, and I call the execute more than hundred times, and it become annoying. So is there any way to set the window invisible?

Answer 1

I personally wasn't happy with the "No, you can't" answer and being the Engineer type of guy that just has to "SOLVE THAT PROBLEM", I was able to get things to work using WScript.Shell:

Shell = luacom.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Shell:Run (command, 0)

The "0" is used to suppress the popup from occurring. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/d5fk67ky%28v=vs.84%29.aspx

Answer 2

The short answer was given by hjpotter in a comment: no, you can't.

A longer explanation follows.

On Windows executable files come in "two flavors": GUI applications and command line applications. This has nothing to do with the inner workings of the program, but it depends on how the program was built (there is a flag for it in the PE executable header which can be set using a linker option). It is the OS that automatically pops up a console window (the "ugly black box") when a command line application is executed.

The problem with os.execute is that it uses C system function under the hood, which in turn is probably implemented by executing the Windows command shell executable cmd.exe, which is a command line application. Thus every time you use os.execute you are indeed executing cmd.exe. That black box is the console window associated with cmd.exe being executed.