I'm trying to write a wrapper that uses inkscape in shell mode. It is possible to execute inkscape in shell mode from the parent program and feeding it with command e.g. --file=xxx --output-png=xxx etc. This works fine. However if the command is the --version it is no longer possible to send more commands to inkscape. It appears as if (after processing --version) it stops reading from stdin.
I'm using Qt 4.6, more specifically the QProcess class. I experienced it first as though it wasn't possible to send multiple commands to inkscape.exe using QProcess. I first thought it was a bug in Qt until I removed the line sending the "--version" to the shell. Then suddenly I was able to sent multiple commands to inkscape. I therefore conclude it must be a bug in inkscape.
Confirmed on Windows XP, Inkscape trunk revision 12322.
But IMHO, it's not a bug. When you run the command # inkscape --version, it shows the version and then quits. I see no reason why it should behave in shell mode.