What is the simplest way to call a program from with a piece of Java code? (The program I want to run is aiSee and it can be run from command line or from Windows GUI; and I am on Vista but the code will also be run on Linux systems).
Take a look at Process and Runtime classes. Keep in mind that what you are trying to accomplish is probably not platform independent.
Here is a little piece of code that might be helpful:
public class YourClass
{
public static void main(String args[])
throws Exception
{
Runtime rt = Runtime.getRuntime();
Process proc = rt.exec("name_of_your_application.exe");
int exitVal = proc.exitValue();
System.out.println("Process exitValue: " + exitVal);
}
}
One question in S.O. discussing similiar issues. Another one. And another one.
You can get a runtime instance using Runtime.getRuntime() and call the runtime's exec method, with the command to execute the program as an argument.
For example:
Runtime runTime = Runtime.getRuntime ();
Process proc = rt.exec("iSee.exe");
You can also capture the output of the program by using getting the InputStream from the process.
The difficulty you will run into is how to get the application to know the path. You may want to use an xml or config file, but if you use this link, it should explain how to run a file:
http://www.javacoffeebreak.com/faq/faq0030.html
You may also want to consider passing in some kind of argument to your program to facilitate finding the specific program you want to run.
This could be with command line arguments, properties files or system properties.
Related
In an effort to make my app more OSX friendly, I am trying to set the dock name of my program to something like MyApp instead of a fully qualified class name (the default), such as myproject.mypackage.mysubpackage.myclass. Obviously, the first is much more appealing.
To do this, I use the OSX -Xdock:name command as a command line option when executing my .jar file. So to execute it, the command might look something like java -Xdock:name=MyApp -jar /mypath/myjar.jar. This works perfectly and sets the .jar's dock name to MyApp. But the issue is that this .jar will never be executed via command line and will be a double-clicked runnable .jar with a GUI display.
The only way I have thought of to set this command line option programmatically is to have a second class execute the class that actually starts the program. So something like this:
public class AppStarter {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String cmd = "java -Xdock:name=MyApp -cp myproject/mypackage/AppBuilder";
try {
Runtime runtime = Runtime.getRuntime();
runtime.exec(cmd);
} catch(IOException ex) {
//Display error message
}
}
}
public class AppBuilder {
public static void main(String[] args) {
//Start actual program and build GUI display
}
}
So here, AppStarter sets the command line options for AppBuilder, which when executed, has the dock name MyApp. The problem I see with this is that it is very tightly coupled. If for some reason the command line is inaccessible on the device or some IOException keeps getting thrown, literally nothing will happen with the program and it will be dead. There would be no way for the average computer user to recover from this.
So I'm wondering if it is possible to perhaps set these command line options after the .jar has already started executing. The old way to programmatically set the app's name has been ineffective for several OSX updates, so I'm stuck with only this command line option. Thanks for any advice.
Once the java command is executed, the command line arguments are parsed and set for the running JVM. You cannot change it any more.
This is usually handled by execution scripts (bash, etc.). If you cannot use them, you can use your approach, but the biggest disadvantage is that it will be running in a separate process.
This is my code for run a java file in other java application but i dont knoow what to do if the program takes only bufferedinputs ??
try {
Runtime rt = Runtime.getRuntime();
// compile the java file
Process pr = rt.exec("javac Main.java");
pr.waitFor();
// run the java file
pr = rt.exec("java Main " + inputs.toString()); // using this i can give command line arguments
pr.waitFor();
}
This is my code i can give command line arguments at run time but what if i want to give bufferedinput to the program ?
Thanks in advance
You state:
This is my code for run a java file in other java application but i dont knoow what to do if the program takes only bufferedinputs ??
To attach to another processes input and output streams, look at the API for the Process class where you'll find and use the getErrorStream(), getInputStream() and getOutputStream() methods. You can then wrap your Input and Output and Error Streams in their respective Buffered Streams.
Note however that you should be wary of common pitfalls which are well explained in the slightly dated article, When Runtime Exec Won't
Having said this, you're far better off using the Java classes themsevels rather than running it in another JVM. Is there a reason that you can't do this? And what do you mean by "buffered" input?
I want to open a file in .jar application and I want to use java to do this. Explaining, for example I have the file SF_Antivalent.xml and I want to open it with uppaal.jar. How do I do this using Java. I've written the following code, but it doesn't work.
public class test7 {
public static void main(String[] args){
Runtime rt=Runtime.getRuntime();
String file="C:\\Users\\V\\Documents\\diplwmatiki\\SFBs\\SF_Antivalent.xml";
Process p=rt("C:\\Windows\\System32\\java.exe", "-jar", "C:\\Users\\"
+ "V\\Documents\\uppaal-4.0.13-aca\\uppaal-4.0.13\\uppaal.jar" + file);
}
}
and I get this error: the method rt(String, String, String) is undefined for the type test.
Is there something to do?
You question is a little confusing, however, I believe you want to run some application and pass the XML file as a parameter to it...
The problem is, you're treating rt as a function/method, not an object. Runtime has the an exec method used to execute external commands, for example...
Runtime rt=Runtime.getRuntime();
String file="C:\\Users\\V\\Documents\\diplwmatiki\\SFBs\\SF_Antivalent.xml";
Process p=rt.exec(new String[]{
"C:\\Windows\\System32\\java.exe",
"-jar",
"C:\\Users\\V\\Documents\\uppaal-4.0.13-aca\\uppaal-4.0.13\\uppaal.jar",
file});
Also, each command or argument you want to send to this external process must be it's own element within the array you pass to this method
This means tha "V\\Documents\\uppaal-4.0.13-aca\\uppaal-4.0.13\\uppaal.jar" + file won't actually have the effect you think it will.
I'd also recommend that you use ProcessBuilder over Runtime#exec, but that's me.
The reason you are getting the error is because rt is a Runtime object, not a method. To call a method of rt do this:
rt.someMethodName();
With the code above you cannot get XML file, you're trying to execute something, instead of opening file inside JAR archive
Look into getResourceAsStream, this will give you possibility to load any file from JAR
I am working on a program written in Java which, for some actions, launches external programs using user-configured command lines. Currently it uses Runtime.exec() and does not retain the Process reference (the launched programs are either a text editor or archive utility, so no need for the system in/out/err streams).
There is a minor problem with this though, in that when the Java program exits, it doesn't really quit until all the launched programs are exited.
I would greatly prefer it if the launched programs were completely independent of the JVM which launched them.
The target operating system is multiple, with Windows, Linux and Mac being the minimum, but any GUI system with a JVM is really what is desired (hence the user configurability of the actual command lines).
Does anyone know how to make the launched program execute completely independently of the JVM?
Edit in response to a comment
The launch code is as follows. The code may launch an editor positioned at a specific line and column, or it may launch an archive viewer. Quoted values in the configured command line are treated as ECMA-262 encoded, and are decoded and the quotes stripped to form the desired exec parameter.
The launch occurs on the EDT.
static Throwable launch(String cmd, File fil, int lin, int col) throws Throwable {
String frs[][]={
{ "$FILE$" ,fil.getAbsolutePath().replace('\\','/') },
{ "$LINE$" ,(lin>0 ? Integer.toString(lin) : "") },
{ "$COLUMN$",(col>0 ? Integer.toString(col) : "") },
};
String[] arr; // array of parsed tokens (exec(cmd) does not handle quoted values)
cmd=TextUtil.replace(cmd,frs,true,"$$","$");
arr=(String[])ArrayUtil.removeNulls(TextUtil.stringComponents(cmd,' ',-1,true,true,true));
for(int xa=0; xa<arr.length; xa++) {
if(TextUtil.isQuoted(arr[xa],true)) {
arr[xa]=TextDecode.ecma262(TextUtil.stripQuotes(arr[xa]));
}
}
log.println("Launching: "+cmd);
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(arr);
return null;
}
This appears to be happening only when the program is launched from my IDE. I am closing this question since the problem exists only in my development environment; it is not a problem in production. From the test program in one of the answers, and further testing I have conducted I am satisfied that it is not a problem that will be seen by any user of the program on any platform.
There is a parent child relation between your processes and you have to break that.
For Windows you can try:
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /c start editor.exe");
For Linux the process seem to run detached anyway, no nohup necessary.
I tried it with gvim, midori and acroread.
import java.io.IOException;
public class Exec {
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("/usr/bin/acroread");
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("Finished");
}
}
I think it is not possible to to it with Runtime.exec in a platform independent way.
for POSIX-Compatible system:
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"/bin/sh", "-c", "your command"}).waitFor();
I have some observations that may help other people facing similar issue.
When you use Runtime.getRuntime().exec() and then you ignore the java.lang.Process handle you get back (like in the code from original poster), there is a chance that the launched process may hang.
I have faced this issue in Windows environment and traced the problem to the stdout and stderr streams. If the launched application is writing to these streams, and the buffer for these stream fills up then the launched application may appear to hang when it tries to write to the streams. The solutions are:
Capture the Process handle and empty out the streams continually - but if you want to terminate the java application right after launching the process then this is not a feasible solution
Execute the process call as cmd /c <<process>> (this is only for Windows environment).
Suffix the process command and redirect the stdout and stderr streams to nul using 'command > nul 2>&1'
It may help if you post a test section of minimal code needed to reproduce the problem. I tested the following code on Windows and a Linux system.
public class Main {
/**
* #param args the command line arguments
*/
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(args[0]);
}
}
And tested with the following on Linux:
java -jar JustForTesting.jar /home/monceaux/Desktop/__TMP/test.sh
where test.sh looks like:
#!/bin/bash
ping -i 20 localhost
as well as this on Linux:
java -jar JustForTesting.jar gedit
And tested this on Windows:
java -jar JustForTesting.jar notepad.exe
All of these launched their intended programs, but the Java application had no problems exiting. I have the following versions of Sun's JVM as reported by java -version :
Windows: 1.6.0_13-b03
Linux: 1.6.0_10-b33
I have not had a chance to test on my Mac yet. Perhaps there is some interaction occuring with other code in your project that may not be clear. You may want to try this test app and see what the results are.
You want to launch the program in the background, and separate it from the parent. I'd consider nohup(1).
I suspect this would require a actual process fork. Basically, the C equivalent of what you want is:
pid_t id = fork();
if(id == 0)
system(command_line);
The problem is you can't do a fork() in pure Java. What I would do is:
Thread t = new Thread(new Runnable()
{
public void run()
{
try
{
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command);
}
catch(IOException e)
{
// Handle error.
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
});
t.start();
That way the JVM still won't exit, but no GUI and only a limited memory footprint will remain.
I tried everything mentioned here but without success. Main parent Java process can't quit until the quit of subthread even with cmd /c start and redirecting streams tu nul.
Only one reliable solution for me is this:
try {
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("psexec -i cmd /c start cmd.cmd");
}
catch (Exception e) {
// handle it
}
I know that this is not clear, but this small utility from SysInternals is very helpful and proven. Here is the link.
One way I can think of is to use Runtime.addShutdownHook to register a thread that kills off all the processes (you'd need to retain the process objects somewhere of course).
The shutdown hook is only called when the JVM exits so it should work fine.
A little bit of a hack but effective.
This is a followup to my own previous question and I'm kind of embarassed to ask this... But anyway: how would you start a second JVM from a standalone Java program in a system-independent way? And without relying on for instance an env variable like JAVA_HOME as that might point to a different JRE than the one that is currently running. I came up with the following code which actually works but feels just a little awkward:
public static void startSecondJVM() throws Exception {
String separator = System.getProperty("file.separator");
String classpath = System.getProperty("java.class.path");
String path = System.getProperty("java.home")
+ separator + "bin" + separator + "java";
ProcessBuilder processBuilder =
new ProcessBuilder(path, "-cp",
classpath,
AnotherClassWithMainMethod.class.getName());
Process process = processBuilder.start();
process.waitFor();
}
Also, the currently running JVM might have been started with some other parameters (-D, -X..., ...) that the second JVM would not know about.
I think that the answer is "Yes". This probably as good as you can do in Java using system independent code. But be aware that even this is only relatively system independent. For example, in some systems:
the JAVA_HOME variable may not have been set,
the command name used to launch a JVM might be different (e.g. if it is not a Sun JVM), or
the command line options might be different (e.g. if it is not a Sun JVM).
If I was aiming for maximum portability in launching a (second) JVM, I think I would do it using wrapper scripts.
It's not clear to me that you would always want to use exactly the same parameters, classpath or whatever (especially -X kind of stuff - for example, why would the child need the same heap settings as its parents) when starting a secondary process.
I would prefer to use an external configuration of some sort to define these properties for the children. It's a bit more work, but I think in the end you will need the flexibility.
To see the extent of possible configuration settings you might look at thye "Run Configurations" settings in Eclipse. Quite a few tabs worth of configuration there.
To find the java executable that your code is currently running under (i.e. the 'path' variable in your question's sample code) there is a utility method within apache ant that can help you. You don't have to build your code with ant - just use it as a library, for this one method.
It is:
org.apache.tools.ant.util.JavaEnvUtils.getJreExecutable("java")
It takes care of the sort of special cases with different JVM vendors that others have mentioned. (And looking at the source code for it, there are more special cases than I would have imagined.)
It's in ant.jar. ant is distributed under the Apache license so hopefully you can use it how you want without hassle.
Here's a way that determines the java executable which runs the current JVM using ProcessHandle.current().info().command().
The ProcessHandle API also should allow to get the arguments. This code uses them for the new JVM if available, only replacing the current class name with another sample class. (Finding the current main class inside the arguments gets harder if you don't know its name, but in this demo it's simply "this" class. And maybe you want to reuse the same JVM options or some of them, but not the program arguments.)
However, for me (openjdk version 11.0.2, Windows 10), the ProcessInfo.arguments() is empty, so the fallback else path gets executed.
package test;
import java.lang.ProcessBuilder.Redirect;
import java.lang.management.ManagementFactory;
import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Optional;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;
import java.util.stream.Stream;
public class TestStartJvm {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
ProcessHandle.Info currentProcessInfo = ProcessHandle.current().info();
List<String> newProcessCommandLine = new LinkedList<>();
newProcessCommandLine.add(currentProcessInfo.command().get());
Optional<String[]> currentProcessArgs = currentProcessInfo.arguments();
if (currentProcessArgs.isPresent()) { // I know about orElse, but sometimes isPresent + get is handy
for (String arg: currentProcessArgs.get()) {
newProcessCommandLine.add(TestStartJvm.class.getName().equals(arg) ? TargetMain.class.getName() : arg);
}
} else {
System.err.println("don't know all process arguments, falling back to passed args array");
newProcessCommandLine.add("-classpath");
newProcessCommandLine.add(ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean().getClassPath());
newProcessCommandLine.add(TargetMain.class.getName());
newProcessCommandLine.addAll(List.of(args));
}
ProcessBuilder newProcessBuilder = new ProcessBuilder(newProcessCommandLine).redirectOutput(Redirect.INHERIT)
.redirectError(Redirect.INHERIT);
Process newProcess = newProcessBuilder.start();
System.out.format("%s: process %s started%n", TestStartJvm.class.getName(), newProcessBuilder.command());
System.out.format("process exited with status %s%n", newProcess.waitFor());
}
static class TargetMain {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.format("in %s: PID %s, args: %s%n", TargetMain.class.getName(), ProcessHandle.current().pid(),
Stream.of(args).collect(Collectors.joining(", ")));
}
}
}
Before ProcessHandle was added in Java 9, I did something like this to query the current JVM's command-line:
Let the user pass or configure a "PID to command-line" command template; under Windows, this could be wmic process where 'processid=%s' get commandline /format:list.
Determine PID using java.lang.management.ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean().getPid().
Expand command template; execute; parse its output.