Running a Program within a Program

[JonJMills]

Anyone know how to start another program on a local machine from within a Java app? Any API's?

 

[byam]

To launch a new JVM to run another java problem, you can do:

Runtime.getRuntime().exec("java yourProgram");

Depending on your purpose, if you want to maintain control of the new launched program by the parent program, instead of launching a new JVM to run that, you may want to use a different class loader to load the class that you want to run and use reflection to involve the main method.

here is an example from java.sun.com

http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/JDCTechTips/2003/tt0819.html#2

File file = new File(".");
ClassLoader loader = new URLClassLoader(
     new URL[] {file.toURL()}
);

// load class through new loader
Class aClass = loader.loadClass(className.getText());
Object objectParameters[] = {new String[]{}};
Class classParameters[] =
     {objectParameters[0].getClass()};
     Method theMethod = aClass.getDeclaredMethod(
     "main", classParameters);
   // Static method, no instance needed
   theMethod.invoke(null, objectParameters);

 

[JonJMills]

But how would u start a non java program, say solitare thats already on most windows machines. If u know the exact address of the .exe is there an api that can start it running?

 

[sedj]

Thats what byam's example does :

Runtime.getRuntime().exec("C:\someplace\freecell.exe"