executing commands on terminal in linux through java

Question

I have created an standalone application in which i want that when the user clicks on the run button then the terminal should open and a particular command should be executed on the terminal. I am able to open the terminal successfully using the following code...

Process process = null;  
try {  
    process = new ProcessBuilder("xterm").start();  
} catch (IOException ex) {  
    System.err.println(ex);  
}

The above code opens a terminal window but I am not able to execute any command on it. Can anyone tell me how to do that?

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 12 '10 at 12:08

5

Try

new ProcessBuilder("xterm", "-e", 
                   "/full/path/to/your/program").start()

answered Nov 12 '10 at 12:08

Kilian Foth

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Actually in the terminal i dont want to run a specific program. I need to execute a particular command. For example, $gedit in the terminal. – Harshit Agarwal Nov 12 '10 at 12:11
By the way I tried your above given statement for knowledge sake but it doesnt work, not even the terminal is opening. – Harshit Agarwal Nov 12 '10 at 12:18
Can you give me a code to execute the "ls" command in linux terminal? – Harshit Agarwal Nov 12 '10 at 12:24
"ls" is just that, it's a program (or a shell built in acting like one). You can just as well call "ls" like you could call "some_very_different_program". – LukeN Nov 12 '10 at 13:56
what should i do if i want give a command which has arguments also? – Harshit Agarwal Nov 13 '10 at 12:55

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 05 '13 at 11:20

Execute any command in linux as is,as what you type in the terminal:

    import java.io.BufferedReader;
    import java.io.IOException;
    import java.io.InputStreamReader;

    public class CommandExecutor {
    public static String execute(String command){
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        String[] commands = new String[]{"/bin/sh","-c", command};
        try {
            Process proc = new ProcessBuilder(commands).start();
            BufferedReader stdInput = new BufferedReader(new 
                    InputStreamReader(proc.getInputStream()));

            BufferedReader stdError = new BufferedReader(new 
                    InputStreamReader(proc.getErrorStream()));

            String s = null;
            while ((s = stdInput.readLine()) != null) {
                sb.append(s);
                sb.append("\n");
            }

            while ((s = stdError.readLine()) != null) {
                sb.append(s);
                sb.append("\n");
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return sb.toString();
    }

}

Usage:

CommandExecutor.execute("ps ax | grep postgres");

or as complex as:

CommandExecutor.execute("echo 'hello world' | openssl rsautl -encrypt -inkey public.pem -pubin | openssl enc -base64");

String command = "ssh user@database-dev 'pg_dump -U postgres -w -h localhost db1 --schema-only'";
CommandExecutor.execute(command);

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 17 '10 at 12:05

2

Suppose you are trying your gedit command then you need to provide the full qualified path to gedit (e.g /usr/bin/gedit). Similarly for all other command specify the full path.

answered Nov 17 '10 at 12:05

Antrromet

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executing commands on terminal in linux through java

3 Answers3