how to run an executable file and then later kill or terminate the same process with R in Windows

Question

let's say i have an executable file stored in c:\my directory\my file.exe that i would like to initiate near the beginning of my R script, and then terminate near the end of my R script. what are some clean ways do this on a windows platform?

i am aware of R commands like shell and shell.exec, but it's not clear to me that these will allow a clean capture of the process id to then use something like the pskill function. it's also not clear if it makes more sense to run this executable through some sort of pipe conection - or how that pipe would work. this particular executable should be included in my windows PATH as a system variable, so it's conceivable that the system function might be of value here as well.

additional clarification: capturing the process id might be important, because (at least for me) this will be used on a database server's executable -- if multiple database servers are currently running on the same machine, the process shouldn't kill all of them - just the one initialized at the start of the R script.

for extra credit: let's say c:\my directory\my file.exe should be called by actually executing another file - c:\my directory\another file.bat - but it's my file.exe that needs to be killed at the end of the R script.

Answer 1

drawing on the other two answers received, this technique seems like a reasonable way to accomplish the stated goal..

# specify executable file
exe.file <- "C:\\Users\\AnthonyD\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe"

# capture the result of a `tasklist` system call
before.win.tasklist <- system2( 'tasklist' , stdout = TRUE )

# store all pids before running the process
before.pids <- substr( before.win.tasklist[ -(1:3) ] , 27 , 35 )

# run the process
shell.exec( exe.file )

# capture the result of a `tasklist` system call
after.win.tasklist <- system2( 'tasklist' , stdout = TRUE )

# store all tasks after running the process
after.tasks <- substr( after.win.tasklist[ -(1:3) ] , 1 , 25 )

# store all pids after running the process
after.pids <- substr( after.win.tasklist[ -(1:3) ] , 27 , 35 )

# store the number in the task list containing the PIDs you've just initiated
initiated.pid.positions <- which( !( after.pids %in% before.pids ) )

# remove whitespace
after.tasks <- gsub( " " , "" , after.tasks )

# find the pid position that matches the executable file name
correct.pid.position <- 
    intersect(
        which( after.tasks %in% basename( exe.file ) ) ,
        initiated.pid.positions 
    )


# remove whitespace
correct.pid <- gsub( " " , "" , after.pids[ correct.pid.position ] )

# write the taskkill command line
taskkill.cmd <- paste( "taskkill" , "/PID" , correct.pid )

# wait thirty seconds (so the program fully loads)
Sys.sleep( 30 )

# kill the same process that was loaded
system( taskkill.cmd )

Answer 2

You could use system function:

system("Taskkill /IM myfile.exe /F")

edit: This worked in my computer with Windows 7 (tested with killing skype.exe).

Answer 3

In the past, I used psKill. It is really powerful and maybe dangerous. You kill multi-procees even ina remote computer. I think you konw we must be extremely careful when we want to kill brutally process.

1. Download the tool , unzip and copy in a known path.
2. First time you launch is asking for liscence..You launch it from the cmd once and you agree.

Then you use somthing like this

process_name <- 'your_process_name'
system(paste(path_to_pskil,'pskill ',process_name,sep=''),intern=T)

For example to kill all chrome instances, you do this

system('c:/temp/pskill chrome',intern=T) !!

EDIT

Assuming you have multi process with the same name. You can use pslist to list all process with this name. Find the id of the process you want to kill according to its elapsed time, then call pskill by id.

For example here I want to kill , the last launched chrome process

my.process <- system('c:/temp/pslist chrome ',intern=T)[-c(1:8)]
my.process
[1] "chrome             3852   8  38 1052 141008     0:01:58.108     1:43:11.547"
[2] "chrome             5428   8  11  202 220392     0:02:08.092     1:43:11.359"
[3] "chrome             6228   8   9  146  73692     0:01:58.467     1:43:00.091"
[4] "chrome             6312   6   9  130  45420     0:00:08.704     1:17:30.153"
[5] "chrome              360   6   9  127  29252     0:00:01.263     0:57:01.084"
[6] "chrome             5032   6   9  126  29596     0:00:00.717     0:31:39.875"
[7] "chrome             2572   8   9  120  23816     0:00:00.452     0:19:10.307"
## ids are orderd according to the elpased time
## I use tail to get the last one
## some regular expression to get the id from the string 
## mine is  ugly but I am sure you can do better.
id <- substr(gsub("([^[:digit:]]*)", "",  tail(my.process,1)),1,4)
system(paste('c:/temp/pskill ', id) ,intern=T)