How to invoke a Linux shell command from Java

Question

I am trying to execute some Linux commands from Java using redirection (>&) and pipes (|). How can Java invoke csh or bash commands?

I tried to use this:

Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("shell command");

But it's not compatible with redirections or pipes.

Answer 1

exec does not execute a command in your shell

try

Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"csh","-c","cat /home/narek/pk.txt"});

instead.

EDIT:: I don't have csh on my system so I used bash instead. The following worked for me

Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"bash","-c","ls /home/XXX"});

Answer 2

Use ProcessBuilder to separate commands and arguments instead of spaces. This should work regardless of shell used:

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class Test {

    public static void main(final String[] args) throws IOException, InterruptedException {
        //Build command 
        List<String> commands = new ArrayList<String>();
        commands.add("/bin/cat");
        //Add arguments
        commands.add("/home/narek/pk.txt");
        System.out.println(commands);

        //Run macro on target
        ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder(commands);
        pb.directory(new File("/home/narek"));
        pb.redirectErrorStream(true);
        Process process = pb.start();

        //Read output
        StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder();
        BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()));
        String line = null, previous = null;
        while ((line = br.readLine()) != null)
            if (!line.equals(previous)) {
                previous = line;
                out.append(line).append('\n');
                System.out.println(line);
            }

        //Check result
        if (process.waitFor() == 0) {
            System.out.println("Success!");
            System.exit(0);
        }

        //Abnormal termination: Log command parameters and output and throw ExecutionException
        System.err.println(commands);
        System.err.println(out.toString());
        System.exit(1);
    }
}

Answer 3

Building on @Tim's example to make a self-contained method:

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.util.ArrayList;

public class Shell {

    /** Returns null if it failed for some reason.
     */
    public static ArrayList<String> command(final String cmdline,
    final String directory) {
        try {
            Process process = 
                new ProcessBuilder(new String[] {"bash", "-c", cmdline})
                    .redirectErrorStream(true)
                    .directory(new File(directory))
                    .start();

            ArrayList<String> output = new ArrayList<String>();
            BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(
                new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()));
            String line = null;
            while ( (line = br.readLine()) != null )
                output.add(line);

            //There should really be a timeout here.
            if (0 != process.waitFor())
                return null;

            return output;

        } catch (Exception e) {
            //Warning: doing this is no good in high quality applications.
            //Instead, present appropriate error messages to the user.
            //But it's perfectly fine for prototyping.

            return null;
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        test("which bash");

        test("find . -type f -printf '%T@\\\\t%p\\\\n' "
            + "| sort -n | cut -f 2- | "
            + "sed -e 's/ /\\\\\\\\ /g' | xargs ls -halt");

    }

    static void test(String cmdline) {
        ArrayList<String> output = command(cmdline, ".");
        if (null == output)
            System.out.println("\n\n\t\tCOMMAND FAILED: " + cmdline);
        else
            for (String line : output)
                System.out.println(line);

    }
}

(The test example is a command that lists all files in a directory and its subdirectories, recursively, in chronological order.)

By the way, if somebody can tell me why I need four and eight backslashes there, instead of two and four, I can learn something. There is one more level of unescaping happening than what I am counting.

Edit: Just tried this same code on Linux, and there it turns out that I need half as many backslashes in the test command! (That is: the expected number of two and four.) Now it's no longer just weird, it's a portability problem.

Answer 4

You can also use my small library called jaxec:

import com.yegor256.Jaxec;
String stdout = new Jaxec("shell", "command")
    .withHome("/home/me") // run it in this directory
    .withRedirect(false) // don't redirect STDERR to STDOUT
    .withCheck(false) // ignore the exit code (no exception if it's not zero)
    .exec();

Here, Jaxec will not only execute the shell command, but also will send its output to Slf4j log, wait for its completion, redirect stderr to stdout, and make sure an exception is raised if the exit code is not equal to zero. Obviously, behind the scene Jaxec uses Runtime.