ProcessBuilder

public final class ProcessBuilder
extends Object

This class is used to create operating system processes.

Each ProcessBuilder instance manages a collection of process attributes. The start() method creates a new Process instance with those attributes. The start() method can be invoked repeatedly from the same instance to create new subprocesses with identical or related attributes.

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. Which string lists represent a valid operating system command is system-dependent. For example, it is common for each conceptual argument to be an element in this list, but there are operating systems where programs are expected to tokenize command line strings themselves - on such a system a Java implementation might require commands to contain exactly two elements.
• an environment, which is a system-dependent mapping from variables to values. The initial value is a copy of the environment of the current process (see getenv()).
• a working directory. The default value is the current working directory of the current process, usually the directory named by the system property user.dir.

  Modifying a process builder's attributes will affect processes subsequently started by that object's start() method, but will never affect previously started processes or the Java process itself.

  Most error checking is performed by the start() method. It is possible to modify the state of an object so that start() will fail. For example, setting the command attribute to an empty list will not throw an exception unless start() is invoked.

  Note that this class is not synchronized. If multiple threads access a ProcessBuilder instance concurrently, and at least one of the threads modifies one of the attributes structurally, it must be synchronized externally.

  Starting a new process which uses the default working directory and environment is easy:

   Process p = new ProcessBuilder("myCommand", "myArg").start();
   

  Here is an example that starts a process with a modified working directory and environment:

   ProcessBuilder pb =
     new ProcessBuilder("myCommand", "myArg1", "myArg2");
   Map<String, String> env = pb.environment();
   env.put("VAR1", "myValue");
   env.remove("OTHERVAR");
   env.put("VAR2", env.get("VAR1") + "suffix");
   pb.directory(new File("myDir"));
   Process p = pb.start();
   

  To start a process with an explicit set of environment variables, first call Map.clear() before adding environment variables.

  Summary

  Public constructors
  ProcessBuilder(List<String> command) Constructs a process builder with the specified operating system program and arguments.
  ProcessBuilder(String... command) Constructs a process builder with the specified operating system program and arguments.

  Public methods
  List<String>	command() Returns this process builder's operating system program and arguments.
  ProcessBuilder	command(String... command) Sets this process builder's operating system program and arguments.
  ProcessBuilder	command(List<String> command) Sets this process builder's operating system program and arguments.
  File	directory() Returns this process builder's working directory.
  ProcessBuilder	directory(File directory) Sets this process builder's working directory.
  Map<String, String>	environment() Returns a string map view of this process builder's environment.
  boolean	redirectErrorStream() Tells whether this process builder merges standard error and standard output.
  ProcessBuilder	redirectErrorStream(boolean redirectErrorStream) Sets this process builder's redirectErrorStream property.
  Process	start() Starts a new process using the attributes of this process builder.

  Inherited methods

  From class java.lang.Object Object clone() Creates and returns a copy of this object. boolean equals(Object obj) Indicates whether some other object is "equal to" this one. void finalize() Called by the garbage collector on an object when garbage collection determines that there are no more references to the object. final Class<?> getClass() Returns the runtime class of this Object. int hashCode() Returns a hash code value for the object. final void notify() Wakes up a single thread that is waiting on this object's monitor. final void notifyAll() Wakes up all threads that are waiting on this object's monitor. String toString() Returns a string representation of the object. final void wait(long millis, int nanos) Causes the current thread to wait until another thread invokes the notify() method or the notifyAll() method for this object, or some other thread interrupts the current thread, or a certain amount of real time has elapsed. final void wait(long millis) Causes the current thread to wait until either another thread invokes the notify() method or the notifyAll() method for this object, or a specified amount of time has elapsed. final void wait() Causes the current thread to wait until another thread invokes the notify() method or the notifyAll() method for this object.

  Public constructors

  ProcessBuilder

  Added in API level 1

  ProcessBuilder (List<String> command)

  Constructs a process builder with the specified operating system program and arguments. This constructor does not make a copy of the command list. Subsequent updates to the list will be reflected in the state of the process builder. It is not checked whether command corresponds to a valid operating system command.

  Parameters
  command	List: the list containing the program and its arguments

  Throws
  NullPointerException	if the argument is null

  ProcessBuilder

  Added in API level 1

  ProcessBuilder (String... command)

  Constructs a process builder with the specified operating system program and arguments. This is a convenience constructor that sets the process builder's command to a string list containing the same strings as the command array, in the same order. It is not checked whether command corresponds to a valid operating system command.

  Parameters
  command	String: a string array containing the program and its arguments

  Public methods

  command

  Added in API level 1

  List<String> command ()

  Returns this process builder's operating system program and arguments. The returned list is not a copy. Subsequent updates to the list will be reflected in the state of this process builder.

  Returns
  List<String>	this process builder's program and its arguments

  command

  Added in API level 1

  ProcessBuilder command (String... command)

  Sets this process builder's operating system program and arguments. This is a convenience method that sets the command to a string list containing the same strings as the command array, in the same order. It is not checked whether command corresponds to a valid operating system command.

  Parameters
  command	String: a string array containing the program and its arguments

  Returns
  ProcessBuilder	this process builder

  command

  Added in API level 1

  ProcessBuilder command (List<String> command)

  Sets this process builder's operating system program and arguments. This method does not make a copy of the command list. Subsequent updates to the list will be reflected in the state of the process builder. It is not checked whether command corresponds to a valid operating system command.

  Parameters
  command	List: the list containing the program and its arguments

  Returns
  ProcessBuilder	this process builder

  Throws
  NullPointerException	if the argument is null

  directory

  Added in API level 1

  File directory ()

  Returns this process builder's working directory. Subprocesses subsequently started by this object's start() method will use this as their working directory. The returned value may be null -- this means to use the working directory of the current Java process, usually the directory named by the system property user.dir, as the working directory of the child process.

  Returns
  File	this process builder's working directory

  directory

  Added in API level 1

  ProcessBuilder directory (File directory)

  Sets this process builder's working directory. Subprocesses subsequently started by this object's start() method will use this as their working directory. The argument may be null -- this means to use the working directory of the current Java process, usually the directory named by the system property user.dir, as the working directory of the child process.

  Parameters
  directory	File: the new working directory

  Returns
  ProcessBuilder	this process builder

  environment

  Added in API level 1

  Map<String, String> environment ()

  Returns a string map view of this process builder's environment. Whenever a process builder is created, the environment is initialized to a copy of the current process environment (see getenv()). Subprocesses subsequently started by this object's start() method will use this map as their environment.

  The returned object may be modified using ordinary Map operations. These modifications will be visible to subprocesses started via the start() method. Two ProcessBuilder instances always contain independent process environments, so changes to the returned map will never be reflected in any other ProcessBuilder instance or the values returned by System.getenv.

  If the system does not support environment variables, an empty map is returned.

  The returned map does not permit null keys or values. Attempting to insert or query the presence of a null key or value will throw a NullPointerException. Attempting to query the presence of a key or value which is not of type String will throw a ClassCastException.

  The behavior of the returned map is system-dependent. A system may not allow modifications to environment variables or may forbid certain variable names or values. For this reason, attempts to modify the map may fail with UnsupportedOperationException or IllegalArgumentException if the modification is not permitted by the operating system.

  Since the external format of environment variable names and values is system-dependent, there may not be a one-to-one mapping between them and Java's Unicode strings. Nevertheless, the map is implemented in such a way that environment variables which are not modified by Java code will have an unmodified native representation in the subprocess.

  The returned map and its collection views may not obey the general contract of the equals(Object) and hashCode() methods.

  The returned map is typically case-sensitive on all platforms.

  If a security manager exists, its checkPermission method is called with a RuntimePermission("getenv.*") permission. This may result in a SecurityException being thrown.

  When passing information to a Java subprocess, system properties are generally preferred over environment variables.

  Returns
  Map<String, String>	this process builder's environment

  Throws
  SecurityException	if a security manager exists and its checkPermission method doesn't allow access to the process environment

  See also:

  • exec(String[], String[], java.io.File)
  • getenv()

  redirectErrorStream

  Added in API level 1

  boolean redirectErrorStream ()

  Tells whether this process builder merges standard error and standard output.

  If this property is true, then any error output generated by subprocesses subsequently started by this object's start() method will be merged with the standard output, so that both can be read using the getInputStream() method. This makes it easier to correlate error messages with the corresponding output. The initial value is false.

  Returns
  boolean	this process builder's redirectErrorStream property

  redirectErrorStream

  Added in API level 1

  ProcessBuilder redirectErrorStream (boolean redirectErrorStream)

  Sets this process builder's redirectErrorStream property.

  If this property is true, then any error output generated by subprocesses subsequently started by this object's start() method will be merged with the standard output, so that both can be read using the getInputStream() method. This makes it easier to correlate error messages with the corresponding output. The initial value is false.

  Parameters
  redirectErrorStream	boolean: the new property value

  Returns
  ProcessBuilder	this process builder

  start

  Added in API level 1

  Process start ()

  Starts a new process using the attributes of this process builder.

  The new process will invoke the command and arguments given by command(), in a working directory as given by directory(), with a process environment as given by environment().

  This method checks that the command is a valid operating system command. Which commands are valid is system-dependent, but at the very least the command must be a non-empty list of non-null strings.

  A minimal set of system dependent environment variables may be required to start a process on some operating systems. As a result, the subprocess may inherit additional environment variable settings beyond those in the process builder's environment().

  If there is a security manager, its checkExec method is called with the first component of this object's command array as its argument. This may result in a SecurityException being thrown.

  Starting an operating system process is highly system-dependent. Among the many things that can go wrong are:

  • The operating system program file was not found.
  • Access to the program file was denied.
  • The working directory does not exist.

  In such cases an exception will be thrown. The exact nature of the exception is system-dependent, but it will always be a subclass of IOException.

  Subsequent modifications to this process builder will not affect the returned Process.

  Returns
  Process	a new Process object for managing the subprocess

  Throws
  NullPointerException	if an element of the command list is null
  IndexOutOfBoundsException	if the command is an empty list (has size 0)
  SecurityException	if a security manager exists and its checkExec method doesn't allow creation of the subprocess, or
  IOException	if an I/O error occurs

  See also:

  • exec(String[], String[], java.io.File)