External Tool

Allows running an external program on the data. It will write out the incoming datatable into a temporary file which can be used as an input to an external tool. After the tool finishes the node will read in an output file the tool has (hopefully) created.
NOTE: Running an external executable takes the control out of our hands. There will be no progress, no failure message, exceptions will not be caught, it may even cause the entire KNIME platform to fail and you lose any unsaved data, etc. Especially, if a shell script (or .bat file) creates sub processes (by calling other programs), these sub processes will continue living even if the node gets canceled. Furthermore, their output will not be fetched, causing them (possibly) to block (not finishing their job) and to exist until you kill them off manually.
Highlighting will not work across this node. Colors are lost (the Color Manager node must be inserted in the flow to re-generate colors).
The output of the external tool is caught and can be seen in the node's views (the last 500 lines only, full output is logged to KNIME's log file - if the log level is set to DEBUG, which is the default).

Options

Input Data File

Enter a file path and name. Before calling the external tool the data from the input port will be written into this file - with the column separator specified and with or without column names and row IDs, depending on the corresponding checkmarks.

External Tool

Specify an existing and executable file that will be called with the specified command line arguments. Before executing this external tool, the current working directory is set to the specified directory. The input file is NOT automatically transfered into the external tool. You need to specify appropriate command line arguments to read this file with your external tool. The tool also needs to write its output into the specified location, in order for the node to pick it up from there.

Output Data File

Specify the file that is created by the external tool with its output data. The node reads the content of this file and provides it at its output port. Also specify the separation character used in the file and if the file contains column names and row IDs.

Views

Tool Output

The text sent to standard out during the execution of the external tool. (If it appears in gray, it's the output of a previously failing run which is preserved for your trouble shooting.)
NOTE: Keeping the view open may slow down the process significantly, if it produces a lot of output in a short amount of time.

Tool Error Output

The text sent to standard error output during the execution of the external tool. (If it appears in gray, it's the output of a previously failing run which is preserved for your trouble shooting.)

Workflows

• 02-download_and_analyze_raw_fileKNIME Hub
• Batch File Execution with External ToolKNIME Hub
• BLAST_The_TreeKNIME Hub
• EC2_connectionKNIME Hub
• EC2_connectionKNIME Hub
• Show all 20 workflows

Links

• Cannot Install Knime extension on MacOSby ptusch on 2019-12-03

  forum.knime.com/p/76039
• Excecute Excel Macroby ipazin on 2019-02-01

  forum.knime.com/p/53959
• Zip file and protect it with passwordby bruno29a on 2021-04-09

  forum.knime.com/p/120483
• Statistical Data Sampling for Auditsby mlauber71 on 2019-11-12

  forum.knime.com/p/74487
• Knime prdictions to PLCby AnotherFraudUser on 2020-05-26

  forum.knime.com/p/92416
• Sharepoint connection, refresh excelby AnotherFraudUser on 2021-11-01

  forum.knime.com/p/138440
• xls open every time when loop endby AnotherFraudUser on 2020-07-06

  forum.knime.com/p/96123
• “External Tool” node unavailable in the newly installed 4.1.0 version (Windows)by qqilihq on 2020-01-28

  forum.knime.com/p/79992
• Use KNIME to run remote jobsby Iris on 2018-08-20

  forum.knime.com/p/46649
• Feeding Knime data output into RStudioby mlauber71 on 2019-06-21

  forum.knime.com/p/62654
• Separates concerns: python script from execution nodesby slamer59 on 2020-08-27

  forum.knime.com/p/100899

Developers