I have a java program that fires off an executable using the Runtime.exec() method. I'm using the variant that takes in a set of command line params as one argument, and some environment variables as another argument.
The environment variable I'm tryign to set is path, so i'm passing in "PATH=C:\some\path". This does not work. Is there some trick to this or any alternatives. I am stuck to Java 1.4 unfortunately.
use http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/lang/System.html#getenv%28java.lang.String%29 to get the environment and fix it up then use a flavour of [http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/lang/Runtime.html#exec%28java.lang.String,%20java.lang.String[],%20java.io.File%29][1] to do the exec.
this works with a batch file that has path in it.
package p;
import java.util.*;
public class Run {
static String[] mapToStringArray(Map<String, String> map) {
final String[] strings = new String[map.size()];
int i = 0;
for (Map.Entry<String, String> e : map.entrySet()) {
strings[i] = e.getKey() + '=' + e.getValue();
i++;
}
return strings;
}
public static void main(String[] arguments) throws Exception {
final Map<String, String> env = new HashMap<String, String>(System.getenv());
env.put("Path", env.get("Path") + ";foo");
final String[] strings=mapToStringArray(env);
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /C start foo.bat",strings);
}
}
If "PATH=C:\some\path" appears in your source code, it would be incorrect as it would be trying to escape the 's' and 'p' in that string, you'd use "PATH=C:\\some\\path" instead (escaping the slashes). Also, you don't want to pass it in as a string directly, but as an array of strings (likely with that as the only string in it).
If you want to change the Path variable on windows, you should take a look at JNI_Registry: http://www.trustice.com/java/jnireg/
It's a Java binding to the Windows Registry API and comes with a very small footprint.
I have used it for my current project and it works just fine.
One solution might be to add an additional command to "exec" where you set the path ... as in the example found here:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/620450-java-runtimegetruntimeexec-help/
excerpt:
cmd = new String[7];
cmd[0] = "cmd";
cmd[1] = "/C";
cmd[2] = "set PATH=C:\\Program Files\\Java\\jdk1.6.0_04\bin";
cmd[3] = "copy " + "\"" +path + "\\" +name+ "\"" + " C:\\java";
cmd[4] = "chdir C:\\java";
cmd[5] = "javac *.java";
cmd[6] = "jar cmf mainClass.txt"+" name"+".jar *.class";
try{
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmd);