The Runtime.exec(String ...) and Runtime.exec(String) methods allow you to execute a command as an external process¹. In the first version, you supply the command name and the command arguments as separate elements of the string array, and the Java runtime requests the OS runtime system to start the external command. The second version is deceptively easy to use, but it has some pitfalls.

First of all, here is an example of using exec(String) being used safely:

Process p = Runtime.exec("mkdir /tmp/testDir");
p.waitFor();
if (p.exitValue() == 0) {
    System.out.println("created the directory");
}

Spaces in pathnames

Suppose that we generalize the example above so that we can create an arbitrary directory:

Process p = Runtime.exec("mkdir " + dirPath);
// ...

This will typically work, but it will fail if dirPath is (for example) "/home/user/My Documents". The problem is that exec(String) splits the string into a command and arguments by simply looking for whitespace. The command string:

"mkdir /home/user/My Documents"

will be split into:

"mkdir", "/home/user/My", "Documents"

and this will cause the "mkdir" command to fail because it expects one argument, not two.

Faced with this, some programmers try to add quotes around the pathname. This doesn't work either:

"mkdir \"/home/user/My Documents\""

will be split into:

"mkdir", "\"/home/user/My", "Documents\""

The extra double-quote characters that were added in attempt to "quote" the spaces are treated like any other non-whitespace characters. Indeed, anything we do quote or escape the spaces is going to fail.

The way to deal with this particular problems is to use the exec(String ...) overload.

Process p = Runtime.exec("mkdir", dirPath);
// ...

This will work if dirpath includes whitespace characters because this overload of exec does not attempt to split the arguments. The strings are passed through to the OS exec system call as-is.

Redirection, pipelines and other shell syntax

Suppose that we want to redirect an external command's input or output, or run a pipeline. For example:

Process p = Runtime.exec("find / -name *.java -print 2>/dev/null");

or

Process p = Runtime.exec("find source -name *.java | xargs grep package");

(The first example lists the names of all Java files in the file system, and the second one prints the package statements² in the Java files in the "source" tree.)

These are not going to work as expected. In the first case, the "find" command will be run with "2>/dev/null" as a command argument. It will not be interpreted as a redirection. In the second example, the pipe character ("|") and the works following it will be given to the "find" command.

The problem here is that the exec methods and ProcessBuilder do not understand any shell syntax. This includes redirections, pipelines, variable expansion, globbing, and so on.

In a few cases (for example, simple redirection) you can easily achieve the desired effect using ProcessBuilder. However, this is not true in general. An alternative approach is to run the command line in a shell; for example:

Process p = Runtime.exec("bash", "-c", 
                         "find / -name *.java -print 2>/dev/null");

or

Process p = Runtime.exec("bash", "-c", 
                         "find source -name \\*.java | xargs grep package");

But note that in the second example, we needed to escape the wildcard character ("*") because we want the wildcard to be interpreted by "find" rather than the shell.

Shell builtin commands don't work

Suppose the following examples won't work on a system with a UNIX-like shell:

Process p = Runtime.exec("cd", "/tmp");     // Change java app's home directory

or

Process p = Runtime.exec("export", "NAME=value");  // Export NAME to the java app's environment

There are a couple of reasons why this won't work:

This reasoning applies to all shell builtin commands.

^{1 - You can use ProcessBuilder as well, but that is not relevant to the point of this example.}

^{2 - This is a bit rough and ready ... but once again, the failings of this approach are not relevant to the example.}

This example will call the windows calculator. It's important to notice that the exit code will vary accordingly to the program/script that is being called.

package process.example;

import java.io.IOException;

public class App {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            // Executes windows calculator
            Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("calc.exe");

            // Wait for process until it terminates
            int exitCode = p.waitFor();

            System.out.println(exitCode);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Launching external processes from Java using the raw java.lang.ProcessBuilder API directly can be a little cumbersome. The Apache Commons Exec library (opens new window) makes it a little easier. The ch.vorburger.exec library (opens new window) further extends upon Commons Exec to make it truly convenient:

ManagedProcess proc = new ManagedProcessBuilder("path-to-your-executable-binary")
     .addArgument("arg1")
     .addArgument("arg2")
     .setWorkingDirectory(new File("/tmp"))
     .setDestroyOnShutdown(true)
     .setConsoleBufferMaxLines(7000)
     .build();

proc.start();
int status = proc.waitForExit();
int status = proc.waitForExitMaxMsOrDestroy(3000);
String output = proc.getConsole();

proc.startAndWaitForConsoleMessageMaxMs("started!", 7000);
// use service offered by external process...
proc.destroy();

The ProcessBuilder class makes it easy to send a command through the command line. All it requires is a List of Strings that make up the commands to be entered. You simply call the start() method on your ProcessBuilder instance to execute the command.

If you have a program called Add.exe which takes two arguments and adds them, the code would look something like this:

List<String> cmds = new ArrayList<>();
cmds.add("Add.exe"); //the name of the application to be run
cmds.add("1"); //the first argument
cmds.add("5"); //the second argument

ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder(cmds);

//Set the working directory of the ProcessBuilder so it can find the .exe
//Alternatively you can just pass in the absolute file path of the .exe
File myWorkingDirectory = new File(yourFilePathNameGoesHere);
pb.workingDirectory(myWorkingDirectory);

try {
    Process p = pb.start(); 
} catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

Some things to keep in mind:

• The array of commands must all be a String array
• The commands must be in the order (in the array) that they would be if you made the call to the program in the command line itself (ie. the name of the .exe can't go after the first argument
• When setting the working directory you need to pass in a File object and not just the file name as a String

In general when making a call to the command line, the program will send the command and then continue its execution.

However you may want to wait for the called program to finish before continuing your own execution (ex. The called program will write data to a file and your program needs that to access that data.)

This can easily be done by calling the waitFor() method from the returned Process instance.

Usage example:

//code setting up the commands omitted for brevity...

ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder(cmds);

try {
    Process p = pb.start();
    p.waitFor();
} catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrack();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

//more lines of code here...

Remarks

Notice that the API recommends that, as of version 1.5, the preferred way to create a Process is using ProcessBuilder.start().

Another important remark is that the exit value produced by waitFor is dependent from the program/script being executed. For instance, the exit codes produced by calc.exe are different from notepad.exe.