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Py4j launch_gateway not connecting properly

I am trying to use py4j to open up a gateway that I can use to pass objects from java into python. When I try to open a gateway with the py4j function launch_gateway it does not seem to properly connect to my Java class. However, when I launch my java class in the command line and then connect to it in python using JavaGateway everything works as expected. I would like to be able to use the built in method as I am sure that I am not accounting for things that have already been considered in the design of py4j, but I'm just not sure what I'm doing wrong.
Let's say I wanted to create a gateway to the class sandbox.demo.solver.UtilityReporterEntryPoint.class. In the command line I can do this by executing the following:
java -cp /Users/grr/anaconda/share/py4j/py4j0.10.4.jar: sandbox.demo.solver.UtilityReporterEntryPoint py4j.GatewayServer
This launches as expected and I can use the methods in my class from within python after connecting to the gateway. So far so good.
My understanding of the py4j documentation would lead me to believe I should do the following to launch the gateway in python:
port = launch_gateway(classpath='sandbox.demo.solver.UtilityReporterEntryPoint')
params = GatewayParameters(port=port)
gateway= JavaGateway(gateway_parameters=params)
I get no errors when executing these three lines, but when I try to access my java class methods with gateway.entry_point.someMethod() it fails with the following error:
Py4JError: An error occurred while calling t.getReport. Trace:
py4j.Py4JException: Target Object ID does not exist for this gateway :t
at py4j.Gateway.invoke(Gateway.java:277)
at py4j.commands.AbstractCommand.invokeMethod(AbstractCommand.java:132)
at py4j.commands.CallCommand.execute(CallCommand.java:79)
at py4j.GatewayConnection.run(GatewayConnection.java:214)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Obviously something is not getting called correctly within launch_gateway or I am feeding it the wrong information.
In the py4j source code for launch_gateway you can see that given the inputs you provide and those constructed by the function, a command is constructed that eventually gets called by subprocess.Popen. So given the input passed to launch_gateway above the command passed into Popen would be:
command = ['java', '-classpath', '/Users/grr/anaconda/share/py4j/py4j0.10.4.jar:sandbox.demo.solver.UtilityReporterEntryPoint', 'py4j.GatewayServer', '0']
Passing this command to Popen returns the listening port as expected. However, connecting to this listening port still does not allow access to my class methods.
Finally, passing the command as a single string to Popen without the final argument ('0'), properly launches a gateway which again operates as expected. Having taken a glance at the Java source code for py4j.GatewayServer.class this makes no sense as the main method seems to indicate that the class should exit with status 1 if the length of arguments is 0.
At this point I'm kind of at a loss. I can hack my way into a workable solution, but as I said I'm sure that ignores important aspects of the gateway behavior and I don't like hacky solutions. I'd love to tag #Barthelemy in this one, but hopefully he reads this. Thanks in advance for any help.
EDIT
For now I have been able to work around this issue with the following steps.
Package entire project including all external dependencies into a single jar file magABM-all.jar, with 'Main-Class' set to UtilityReporterEntryPoint.
Include if...else block regarding presence of --die-on-exit exactly like it is in GatewayServer.java
Use subprocess.Popen to call the command to run the project jar.
UtilityReporterEntryPoint.java
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
GatewayServer server = new GatewayServer(new UtilityReporterEntryPoint());
System.out.println("Gateway Server Started");
server.start();
if (args[0].equals("--die-on-exit")) {
try {
BufferedReader stdin = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in, Charset.forName("UTF-8")));
stdin.readLine();
System.exit(0);
} catch (java.io.IOException e) {
System.exit(1);
}
}
}
app.py
def setup_gateway()
"""Launch a py4j gateway using UtilityReporterEntryPoint."""
process = subprocess.Popen('java -jar magABM-all.jar --die-on-exit', shell=True)
time.sleep(0.5)
gateway = JavaGateway()
return gateway
In this way I can still use gateway.shutdown if necessary and if the python process that starts the py4j gateway dies or is closed the gateway will be closed.
N.B I would by no means consider this a final solution as py4j was written by much smarter individuals with a clear purpose in mind and I am sure that there is a way to manage this exact workflow within the confines of py4j. This is just a stopgap solution.

There are a few issues:
The classpath parameter in launch_gateway should be a directory or a jar file, not a class name. For example, if you want to include additional Java libraries, you would add them to the classpath parameter.
The error you receive when you call gateway.entry_point.someMethod() means that you have no entry point. When you call launch_gateway, the JVM is started with GatewayServer.main, which launches a GatewayServer with no entry point: GatewayServer server = new GatewayServer(null, port). It is not possible currently to use launch_gateway and specify an entry point.
When you start the JVM with java -cp /Users/grr/anaconda/share/py4j/py4j0.10.4.jar: sandbox.demo.solver.UtilityReporterEntryPoint py4j.GatewayServer I believe the JVM uses UtilityReporterEntryPoint as the main class. Although you did not provide the code, I assume that this class has a main method and that it launches a GatewayServer with an instance of UtilityReporterEntryPoint as the entry point. Note that there is a whitespace between the colon and the class name so UtilityReporterEntryPoint is seen as the main class and not as being part of the classpath.

Debugging in Java - Eclipse [duplicate]

I want to change the logging level depending if I'm debbugging or not, but I can't find a code snippet to check if the application is running in debug mode.
I'm using eclipse to debug the application, so if the solution only works within Eclipse it will be fine.

Found the answer on how-to-find-out-if-debug-mode-is-enabled
boolean isDebug = java.lang.management.ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean().
getInputArguments().toString().contains("-agentlib:jdwp");
This will check if the Java Debug Wire Protocol agent is used.

You could modify the Debug Configuration. For example add a special VM argument only in the Debug Configuration. You can use System.getProperties() to read the supplied arguments.
Even better, modify the configurations (Run and Debug) to load a different logging configuration file. It isn't good if you need to write code to determine the logging level. This should only be a matter of configuration.

There is not an officially sanctioned way to reliably determine if any given JVM is in debug mode from inside the JVM itself, and relying on artifacts will just break your code some time in the future.
You will therefore need to introduce a methology yourself. Suggestions:
A system property.
An environment variable (shell variable like $HOME or %HOME%)
Ask the JVM about the physical location of a given resource - http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/java.lang/ClassOrigin.html - and based on it, make your decision (does the path contain the word "debug"? is it inside a jar or an unpacked class file? etc).
JNDI
The existance or content of a particular resource.

Have you tried add a vm argument in the eclipse run config?
Pass this as a VM Argument
-Ddebug=true
then you can do Boolean.getBoolean("debug") to check this.

If you are setting the debug level from your own program, may be a line like:
public static final boolean DEBUG_MODE = System.getProperty("java.vm.info", "").contains("sharing");
would do the trick.
Just tested it in eclipse3.5:
package test;
public class Test
{
/**
* #param args
*/
public static void main(String[] args)
{
System.out.println(System.getProperty("java.vm.info", ""));
}
}
will display:
mixed mode, sharing
if launched without debug
mixed mode
if executed with debug launcher
Joachim Sauer comments:
This is highly system depending.
I assume the "sharing" indicates that cross-VM class-sharing is active.
This is a very new feature and is only available on some platforms.
Furthermore there can be many possible reasons to en- or disable it, so I wouldn't use this for debug-mode detection.
(Note: I tested it with the latest jdk1.6b14. I leave this as a CW answer.)

Have a look here:
http://wiki.eclipse.org/FAQ_How_do_I_use_the_platform_debug_tracing_facility%3F
Moreover, I think you can't know if your app is run in debug mode. The only thing you can do is to pass an argument to your JVM when you debug.
Manu

If using socket (e.g. 9999) you can call netstat to check if connection was established:
Process p = new ProcessBuilder("netstat", "-n").start();
String stdout = IOUtils.toString(p.getInputStream(), Charset.defaultCharset());
Then scan in stdout for 127.0.0.1:9999.*ESTABLISHED

how to implement expect "interact" command using java

I want to implement the expect "interact" command using java. In expect, it's possible to open an ssh session, authenticate and, then, use the "interact" command to give the control back to the user. Is that possible with java? I've tried with expectJ, expect4J and expectForJava but there's little documentation and almost no examples of how to do this. TIA.
Update: for "interact" command reference, please check this out: http://wiki.tcl.tk/3914
"Interact is an Expect command which gives control of the current
process to the user, so that keystrokes are sent to the current
process, and the stdout and stderr of the current process are
returned."

In case anyone is interested, I have added basic interactive loop support to ExpectIt, my own open source Expect for Java implementation (sorry for self-promotion), since version 0.8.
Here is an example of interacting with the system input stream in Java 8:
try (final Expect expect = new ExpectBuilder()
.withInputs(System.in)
.build()) {
expect.interact()
.when(contains("abc")).then(r -> System.out.println("A"))
.when(contains("xyz")).then(r -> System.err.println("B"))
.until(contains("exit"));
System.out.println("DONE!");
}
System.in.close();

These libraries might suit your needs better:
SSHJ
https://github.com/shikhar/sshj
JSCH
http://www.jcraft.com/jsch/

Using Inline::Java in perl with threads

I am writing a trading program in perl with the newest Finance::InteractiveBrokers::TWS
module. I kick off a command line interface in a separate thread at the
beginning of my program but then when I try to create a tws object, my program
exits with this message:
As of Inline v0.30, use of the Inline::Config module is no longer supported or
allowed. If Inline::Config exists on your system, it can be removed. See the
Inline documentation for information on how to configure Inline. (You should
find it much more straightforward than Inline::Config :-)
I have the newest versions of Inline and Inline::Java. I looked at TWS.pm and it doesn't seem to be using Inline::Config. I set 'SHARED_JVM => 1' in the 'use Inline()' and 'Inline->bind()' calls in TWS.pm but that did not resolve the issue...
My Code:
use Finance::InteractiveBrokers::TWS;
use threads;
use threads::shared;
our $callback;
our $tws;
my $interface = UserInterface->new();
share($interface);
my $t = threads->create(sub{$interface->runUI()});
$callback= TWScallback->new();
$tws = Finance::InteractiveBrokers::TWS->new($manager); #This is where the program fails

So is Inline::Config installed on your system or not? A cursory inspection of the code is not sufficient to tell whether Perl is loading a module or not. There are too many esoteric ways (some intentional and some otherwise) to load a package or otherwise populate a namespace.
The error message in question comes from this line of code in Inline.pm:
croak M14_usage_Config() if %main::Inline::Config::;
so something in your program is populating the Inline::Config namespace. You should do what the program instructs you to do: find out where Inline/Config.pm is installed on your system (somewhere in your #INC path) and delete it.

Pinning a Java application to the Windows 7 taskbar

I use Launch4j as a wrapper for my Java application under Windows 7, which, to my understanding, in essence forks an instance of javaw.exe that in turn interprets the Java code. As a result, when attempting to pin my application to the task bar, Windows instead pins javaw.exe. Without the required command line, my application will then not run.
As you can see, Windows also does not realize that Java is the host application: the application itself is described as "Java(TM) Platform SE binary".
I have tried altering the registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\javaw.exe to add the value IsHostApp. This alters the behavior by disabling pinning of my application altogether; clearly not what I want.
After reading about how Windows interprets instances of a single application (and a phenomenon discussed in this question), I became interested in embedding a Application User Model ID (AppUserModelID) into my Java application.
I believe that I can resolve this by passing a unique AppUserModelID to Windows. There is a shell32 method for this, SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID. Following Gregory Pakosz suggestion, I implemented it in an attempt to have my application recognized as a separate instance of javaw.exe:
NativeLibrary lib;
try {
lib = NativeLibrary.getInstance("shell32");
} catch (Error e) {
Logger.out.error("Could not load Shell32 library.");
return;
}
Object[] args = { "Vendor.MyJavaApplication" };
String functionName = "SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID";
try {
Function function = lib.getFunction(functionName);
int ret = function.invokeInt(args);
if (ret != 0) {
Logger.out.error(function.getName() + " returned error code "
+ ret + ".");
}
} catch (UnsatisfiedLinkError e) {
Logger.out.error(functionName + " was not found in "
+ lib.getFile().getName() + ".");
// Function not supported
}
This appears to have no effect, but the function returns without error. Diagnosing why is something of a mystery to me. Any suggestions?
Working implementation
The final implementation that worked is the answer to my follow-up question concerning how to pass the AppID using JNA.
I had awarded the bounty to Gregory Pakosz' brilliant answer for JNI that set me on the right track.
For reference, I believe using this technique opens the possibility of using any of the APIs discussed in this article in a Java application.

I don't have Windows 7 but here is something that might get you started:
On the Java side:
package com.stackoverflow.homework;
public class MyApplication
{
static native boolean setAppUserModelID();
static
{
System.loadLibrary("MyApplicationJNI");
setAppUserModelID();
}
}
And on the native side, in the source code of the `MyApplicationJNI.dll library:
JNIEXPORT jboolean JNICALL Java_com_stackoverflow_homework_MyApplication_setAppUserModelID(JNIEnv* env)
{
LPCWSTR id = L"com.stackoverflow.homework.MyApplication";
HRESULT hr = SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID(id);
return hr == S_OK;
}
Your question explicitly asked for a JNI solution. However, since your application doesn't need any other native method, jna is another solution which will save you from writing native code just for the sake of forwarding to the windows api. If you decide to go jna, pay attention to the fact that SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID() is expecting a UTF-16 string.
When it works in your sandbox, the next step is to add operating system detection in your application as SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID() is obviously only available in Windows 7:
you may do that from the Java side by checking that System.getProperty("os.name"); returns "Windows 7".
if you build from the little JNI snippet I gave, you can enhance it by dynamically loading the shell32.dll library using LoadLibrary then getting back the SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID function pointer using GetProcAddress. If GetProcAddress returns NULL, it means the symbol is not present in shell32 hence it's not Windows 7.
EDIT: JNA Solution.
References:
The JNI book for more JNI examples
Java Native Access (JNA)

There is a Java library providing the new Windows 7 features for Java. It's called J7Goodies by Strix Code. Applications using it can be properly pinned to the Windows 7 taskbar. You can also create your own jump lists, etc.

I have implemented access to the SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID method using JNA and it works quite well when used as the MSDN documentation suggests. I've never used the JNA api in the way you have in your code snippet. My implementation follows the typical JNA usage instead.
First the Shell32 interface definition:
interface Shell32 extends StdCallLibrary {
int SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID( WString appID );
}
Then using JNA to load Shell32 and call the function:
final Map<String, Object> WIN32API_OPTIONS = new HashMap<String, Object>() {
{
put(Library.OPTION_FUNCTION_MAPPER, W32APIFunctionMapper.UNICODE);
put(Library.OPTION_TYPE_MAPPER, W32APITypeMapper.UNICODE);
}
};
Shell32 shell32 = (Shell32) Native.loadLibrary("shell32", Shell32.class,
WIN32API_OPTIONS);
WString wAppId = new WString( "Vendor.MyJavaApplication" );
shell32.SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID( wAppId );
Many of the API's in the last article you mentioned make use of Windows COM which is quite difficult to use directly with JNA. I have had some success creating a custom DLL to call these API's (eg. using the SHGetPropertyStoreForWindow to set a different app ID for a submodule window) which I then use JNA to access at runtime.

Try to use JSmooth. I use always this one. In JSmooth is there an option under Skeleton by Windowed Wrapper called
Lauch java app in exe process
See on this image.
(source: andrels.com)
Also command line arguments can be passed.
I think this can be a solution for you.
Martijn

SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID (or SetAppID()) would in fact do what you're trying to do. However, it might be easier to modify your installer to set the AppUserModel.ID property on your shortcut - quoting from the Application User Model ID document mentioned above:
In the System.AppUserModel.ID property of the application's shortcut file. A shortcut (as an IShellLink, CLSID_ShellLink, or a .lnk file) supports properties through IPropertyStore and other property-setting mechanisms used throughout the Shell. This allows the taskbar to identify the proper shortcut to pin and ensures that windows belonging to the process are appropriately associated with that taskbar button.
Note: The System.AppUserModel.ID property should be applied to a shortcut when that shortcut is created. When using the Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) to install the application, the MsiShortcutProperty table allows the AppUserModelID to be applied to the shortcut when it is created during installation.

The latest jna-platform library now includes JNA bindings for SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID:
https://github.com/java-native-access/jna/pull/680

I fixed mine without any ID settings.
There is an option in Launch4J if you are using it and you say you do then...
You can change the header to JNI Gui and then wrap it around the jar with the JRE.
The good thing is that it runs .exe in the process now instead on running javaw.exe with your jar. It probably does it under the hood (not sure).
Also I have noticed also that it takes around 40-50% less CPU resource which is even better!
And the pinning works fine and all that window features are enabled.
I hope it helps to someone as I spent nearly 2 days trying to solve that issue with my undecorated javafx app.