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How do I get return string from external program in XPCOM (Firefox)?

I want to run an external program in XPCOM but I need to get the actual return string from the program, not just a return code. How would I do this?

All I've found is nsICommandLine, nsICommandLineHandler, nsICommandLineRunner and nsIProcess none of which return anything beyond an exit code (from what I can see).

Solution

  • Gecko doesn't have any meaningful IPC capabilities. While the process is running you can communicate with it via TCP sockets. If you want to return something when the process finishes - write to a file and your Firefox extension can read out that file then.