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Java Process object fails to execute given command

I am trying to run a piece of Python code via a Java application. The command when put directly into Command Prompt cd'd to the working directory runs exactly as intended. However, my attempts to use the Runtime and ProcessBuilder classes in conjunction with the Process class has yielded no sign of correct function which would be the creation of a CSV file for every call of the code.
I am running this program using Intellij on Windows 10. I have added each directory I am using to my environmental PATH variable as well as attempting full paths in my commands and just file names. The only source of life I can find is that if I include a .waitFor() method a .isAlive() method will return true before the .waitFor() method is called.
I have searched through various similar questions and concluded that using a ProcessBuilder object is the best way to go and that the biggest issue is probably the structure of my command. However, I have made many iterations and have found nothing that changes the caught error to anything useful.
Here is the privacy augmented code that I have been running, I wrote out the command in full in the process builder as that is the last iteration I have attempted.
for (int y = 1; y < iterator; y++) {
try {
String command =
"C:\\Users\\myName\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python37\\python C:\\Users\\myName\\IdeaProjects\\projectApplication\\script.py ";
String pythonInputPath = " C:\\Users\\myName\\IdeaProjects\\projectApplication\\bin\\output" + y + ".wav ";
ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder(command+Arrays.toString(pythonCommandString).replaceAll("\\s","")+pythonInputPath+Integer.toString(y));
Process p = pb.start();
//Process checks
System.out.println(p.isAlive());
p.waitFor();
System.out.println(p.isAlive());
//Destroying process once complete to ensure smooth iterations
p.destroy();
} catch (Exception ex) {
System.out.println("Problems with python script execution: " + ex);
}
}
They python code takes in a WAV file (pythonInputPath) that is a product of earlier part of the application, an Integer[] that usually includes ~20 values (pythonCommandString), and a single iteration integer (y).
The first call to .isAlive() is true and the second is false as expected however the script normally creates a CSV that should be output to a bin file that exists in the working director and that fails to occur when running from Java. From other examples I expected using the Process builder as opposed to the Runtime stream to work, however, there is no difference in my implementation.

Do not concatenate the program with its arguments. Quoting Oracle ProcessBuilder docs
Each process builder manages these process attributes: a command, a
list of strings which signifies the external program file to be
invoked and its arguments, if any
and
ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder("myCommand", "myArg1", "myArg2");
Just use the constructor you use, but pass each argument as a separate string, otherwise the OS will try to find an application that is named as a whole command line you gave, and obviously there is no such program

Calling ps on Linux from Java

In Java, I start one new Process using Runtime.exec(), and this process in turn spawns several child processes.
I want to be able to kill all the processes, and have previously been trying process.destroy() and process.destroyForcibly() - but the docs say that destroyForcibly() just calls destroy() in the default implementation and destroy() may not kill all subprocesses (I've tried and it clearly doesn't kill the child processes).
I'm now trying a different approach, looking up the PID of the parent process using the method suggested here and then calling ps repeatedly to traverse the PIDs of child processes, then killing them all using kill. (It only needs to run on Linux).
I've managed the first bit - looking up the PID, and am trying the following command to call ps to get the child PIDs:
String command = "/bin/ps --ppid " + pid;
Process process = new ProcessBuilder(command).start();
process.waitFor();
Unfortunately the 2nd line above is throwing an IOException, with the following message: java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "/bin/ps --ppid 21886": error=2, No such file or directory
The command runs fine if I paste it straight into the terminal on Ubuntu 16.04.
Any ideas would be very much appreciated.
Thanks

Calling the command you wish to run this way is always destined to fail.
Since Process does not effectively run a shell session, the command is basically handed over to the underlying OS to run. This means that it'll fail, since the path to t he program to be executed (in this case ps), is not the full one hence the error you're getting.
Also, testing whether your command works using a terminal is not correct. Using a terminal contains the notion of performing an action with an active logged in user with a correct path etc etc. All the above are not the case though when running a command through Process as these are not taken into consideration.
Furthermore, you also need to account for cases where the actual java application could be running under a different user, with a different set of permissions, paths etc.
In order for your to fix this, you can simply do either of the following:
1) Invoke your ps command using the full path to it (still not sure if it would work)
2) Change the way your create the Process object into something like: p = new ProcessBuilder("bash", "-c", command).start();
The second, will effectively run a bash session, passing in the ps command as an argument thus obtaining the desired result.

http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-exec/tutorial.html
```
String line = "AcroRd32.exe /p /h " + file.getAbsolutePath();
CommandLine cmdLine = CommandLine.parse(line);
DefaultExecutor executor = new DefaultExecutor();
int exitValue = executor.execute(cmdLine);
```

How to change the System clock of a Linux machine by using Java?

I know that by using the command in the terminal
date --set="2011-12-07 01:20:15.962"
you would actually be able to change the System clock, so I tried it in Java and came up with the following statement
Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("date --set=\"2011-12-07 01:20:15.962\"");
but it was not able to set the clock.
Do you have any idea guys how it may be able work?
Premise:
The machine is Slackware,
The privilege is root level

There are two problems with this line of code:
Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("date --set=\"2011-12-07 01:20:15.962\"");
You did not wait for the process to complete (see also http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/lang/Process.html#waitFor())
Parameters should be separated from program name, try this:
"date", "-s", "2011-12-07 01:20:15.962"
Alternatively, invoke shell as the process, and pass in a line of code:
.exec("sh", "-c", "date --set=\"2011-12-07 01:20:15.962\"")

Process p=Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"date","--set","2011-12-07 01:20:15.962"});
The above statement worked like magic. #Howard Gou was right with "Parameters should be separated from program name"
The parts of the command statement should be passed by using a String array.

Command prompt doesn't open with Runtime.getRuntime().exec

I've created a GUI (swing) that executes a batch file that contains a command prompt .exe file execution with specific parameters.
When I run the batch file manually (by double clicking it), everything is as expected.
The problem is: the command prompt window doesn't open to show progress, moreover, it doesn't really start to work (only initiated) until I exit the GUI (forking?). When it starts to work, is works somewhere in the background and seen only in the task manager.
Only a blank command prompt window is opened.
From digging little bit around, I've constructed this command that gives me same result as above:
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd.exe /c start \"Encoding\" cmd.exe /c start md \"" + Gui.outputDirField.getText() + "\\encoderOutput\" & cd \"" + Gui.outputDirField.getText() + "\\encoderOutput\" & \"" + Gui._batFile + "\" & pause");
Could you please assist?
Sorry if it sounds stupid..

this way works for me:
new Thread() {
#Override public void run() {
try {
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd.exe /c start " + Gui._batFile);
} catch (IOException e1) {
e1.printStackTrace();
}
}
}.run();

trashgod may be on to something. We ran into issues with paths with spaces. This is from the release notes for jre 7u21
Changes to Runtime.exec
On Windows platform, the decoding of command strings specified to Runtime.exec(String), Runtime.exec(String,String[]) and Runtime.exec(String,String[],File) methods, has been improved to follow the specification more closely. This may cause problems for applications that are using one or more of these methods with commands that contain spaces in the program name, or are invoking these methods with commands that are not quoted correctly.
For example, Runtime.getRuntime().exec("C:\\My Programs\\foo.exe bar") is an attempt to launch the program "C:\\My" with the arguments "Programs\\foo.exe" and "bar". This command is likely to fail with an exception to indicate "C:\My" cannot be found.
The example Runtime.getRuntime().exec("\"C:\\My Programs\\foo.exe\" bar") is an attempt to launch the program "\"C:\\My". This command will fail with an exception to indicate the program has an embedded quote.
Applications that need to launch programs with spaces in the program name should consider using the variants of Runtime.exec that allow the command and arguments to be specified in an array.
Alternatively, the preferred way to create operating systems processes since JDK 5.0 is using java.lang.ProcessBuilder. The ProcessBuilder class has a much more complete API for setting the environment, working directory and redirecting streams for the process.

Does your bat file requiere user interaction or why are you putting a pause on your command? If so, the Runtime.exec just runs the file with no window, why would you want a Window? >ou can get a Process object as a result from the exec, from this object you can get an InputStream (and if needed, an OutputStream) so you can print your output or interact with the process.

Java cannot execute system command (Ubuntu)

It's not the first time I have tried to execute a system command from Java; but this time it turns out to be very hard. I have a script that executes just fine from the terminal. It reads input from a file (input.txt), it processes it and exports the result in another file (ouput.txt). The whole thing lasts no more than 1sec. But, when I try to execute it from Java, it gets stuck and never finishes. This is my code:
Process p = new ProcessBuilder("./runCalculator.sh").start();
p.waitFor();
I have also tried with Runtime.getRuntime().exec("./runCalculator.sh") but all the same. I've read both the InputStream and the ErrorStream of the process. The error stream returns nothing but a message like "Starting Calculation..."
Any ideas?

You need to use the following code:
ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder();
pb.command("bash", "-c", "./runCalculator.sh");
Process process = pb.start();
int retValue = process.waitFor();

You likely need to invoke the unix command interpreter/processor for this to work. Please see: When Runtime.exec() won't.

Try this:
Process p = new ProcessBuilder("sh ./runCalculator.sh").start();

Another, simplier solution is that you can open program by entering the name of the program (this assumes that program is installed) instead of creating script and calling it.
Note that the name of the program isn't always what you see in Gnome's menu, for example Gnome's calculator is "gnome-calculator". Regarding this facts, you can run calculator by the folowing line:
Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("gnome-calculator");
In that case you don't have a need for any sh scripts (in your case runCalculator.sh).