External Tool node: Spread command over multiple lines

KNIME Extensions
1

Is it possible to break a shell command for the "External Tool (Labs)" node into several lines?

As a starting point I had the shell command

cp %inFile% %outFile%

and that worked fine. I then tried to put each part of the command onto its own line, but that failed:

cp %inFile% %outFile%

and also adding single or double backslashes after lines 1 and 2 failed. Is there a way to make this work? The textarea supports multiple lines so I assume that there has to be some way.

2

Hi there. That functionality isn't available I'm afraid, so you'll need to keep the command as a single line. You could always construct the command as text, and then use the String Manipulation node to remove the newline characters.

3

yes, it is possible, if you do as jonfuller wrote.

I just recently wrote a blog on external tool usage in windows and a worklfow which makes use of a dos-type batch file created within knime.

http://www.pharmakarma.org/2017/03/09/knime-external-tool-ocr-of-structures/