Under Windows, wxCLIPS functions as a simple DDE server, responding to server and topic 'WXCLIPS'. This is mainly to allow the possibility of using an external editor to load files into wxCLIPS and execute commands, offering some of the benefits of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). It could also be used to control wxCLIPS applications remotely without having to set up a DDE server explicitly using CLIPS.
The DDE client must connect to the server using the service name WXCLIPS, and establish a conversation on the WXCLIPS topic. An example of a program that can do this is wxclipsx.exe, the source of which is provided with wxCLIPS: an executable is available from the AIAI ftp site. This may be run with the switch -c and then the DDE command to execute; if run with command line parameters, the command is executed and wxclipsx.exe exits immediately. If run without parameters, the program runs interactively and the user can type in commands. Being a wxWindows program, wxclipsx.exe is large (500K); so there is a native Windows equivalent called ddesend.exe, which is only 10 K. Ddesend takes only the DDE command, and no other switches (e.g. no -c).
The file examples/macros.rc is a sample MicroEMACS for Windows macro file, that implements commnds for loading files into wxCLIPS, and executing CLIPS commands, from within MicroEMACS, using ddesend.exe.
Here are some examples of wxCLIPS DDE commands. They consist of a letter, a space, and then some data.
L c:\example.clp B c:\example.clp E (app-on-init) Q CHere is a list of commands that wxCLIPS recognizes: