GP Beta Test Forum

Hi, it would be nice if you can add a block to GP wich can execute any code. It can be helpful maybe to read a text file and run this as a script with this block. And maybe the block should have a dropdown to choice between the GP-Syntax or other languages like VBScript, Batch, or C#...

Thank you very much.

My take on this request would be (if doing it at all) that it should just allow a call to an underlying OS/shell command line and then let programmer deal with stuff afterwards

I do this in my ScratchGPIO that runs on a RaspberryPi - users can

broadcast "run xxxxxxxxxxxxxx" and it just does a call to the shell and executes xxxxxxxxxxxxx

GP itself can only run GP code, just like the Java virtual machine can only run Java code, the Python interpreter can only run Python code, and the C++ compiler can only compile C++ code. That said, as SimpleSi points out, on platforms that support an OS shell (Mac/Linux/Windows but probably not Android, ChromeOS, or iOS) it would be possible to create a block that runs programs written in other languages via the OS shell. That might be a useful feature to add to GP at some point. (It's also potentially dangerous, so perhaps GP should ask the user's permission before running that command...)

It *is* possible to load and run GP code using the developer mode menu command "load source file...". For example, you can create a file named "tmp.gp" containing the line:
then enter developer mode and select "load source file..." from the right-click menu on the stage. A Workspace (text) window will pop up the given text in it.

What applications were you thinking of that would need this feature?

-- John