Is it possible to execute binary files in java?

Question

I have a list of binaries written in Java, Ada, C, and Python and I want to execute them. How can I do that? Are there any JVM binding to those languages?

Answer 1

If all you want to do is execute existing applictions, you can use the exec methods from the java.io.runtime namespace.

Runtime rt = Runtime.getRuntime();
Process ps = rt.exec("path to my executable.exe");

Answer 2

Yes. Here is a link to a good blog article on how to do it: Running system commands in Java.

The gist of it is that you need to do the following:

// run the Unix "ps -ef" command
// using the Runtime exec method:
Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("ps -ef");

You can pretty much put any command in there but the only gotcha that I have encountered in be aware of system environment variables like the PATH that you are running your JVM in.

Answer 3

If you want to interact with the binary API's, use:

• Java Native Access (JNA): for loading and calling DLLs.
• Java Native Interface (JNI): for wrapping a C library in Java.