Let's say I want to run a VBS script from R, and I want to pass a value from R to that script.
For example, in a simple file called 'Msg_Script.vbs', I have the code:
Dim Msg_Text
Msg_Text = "[Insert Text Here]"
MsgBox("Hello " & Msg_Text)
How do I run this script using R, while editing the parameters and/or variables in R? In the above script for instance, how would I edit the value of the Msg_Text variable?
Another way would be to pass the value as an argument to the VBScript
You'd write the VBS as follows:
Dim Msg_Text
Msg_Text = WScript.Arguments(0)
MsgBox("Hello " & Msg_Text)
And then you'd create a system command in R like this:
system_command <- paste("WScript",
'"Msg_Script.vbs"',
'"World"',
sep = " ")
system(command = system_command,
wait = TRUE)
This approach matches the arguments by position. If you wanted, you could use named arguments instead. This way, your VBS would look like this:
Dim Msg_Text
Msg_Text = WScript.Arguments.Named.Item("Msg_Text")
MsgBox("Hello " & Msg_Text)
And then you'd create a system command in R like this:
system_command <- paste("WScript",
'"Msg_Script.vbs"',
'/Msg_Text:"World"',
sep = " ")
system(command = system_command,
wait = TRUE)
Here's a somewhat-hackish solution:
Read the lines from the vbs script into R (using readLines()):
vbs_lines <- readLines(con = "Msg_Script.vbs")
Edit the lines in R by finding and replacing specific text:
updated_vbs_lines <- gsub(x = vbs_lines,
pattern = "[Insert Text Here]",
replacement = "World",
fixed = TRUE)
Create a new VBS script using the updated lines:
writeLines(text = updated_vbs_lines,
con = "Temporary VBS Script.vbs")
Run the script using a system command:
full_temp_script_path <- normalizePath("Temporary VBS Script.vbs")
system_command <- paste0("WScript ", '"', full_temp_script_path, '"')
system(command = system_command,
wait = TRUE)
Delete the new script after you've run it:
file.remove("Temporary VBS Script.vbs")