ProcessBuilder: Forwarding stdout and stderr of started processes without blocking the main thread
JavaProcessbuilderJava Problem Overview
I'm building a process in Java using ProcessBuilder as follows:
ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder()
.command("somecommand", "arg1", "arg2")
.redirectErrorStream(true);
Process p = pb.start();
InputStream stdOut = p.getInputStream();
Now my problem is the following: I would like to capture whatever is going through stdout and/or stderr of that process and redirect it to System.out
asynchronously. I want the process and its output redirection to run in the background. So far, the only way I've found to do this is to manually spawn a new thread that will continuously read from stdOut
and then call the appropriate write()
method of System.out
.
new Thread(new Runnable(){
public void run(){
byte[] buffer = new byte[8192];
int len = -1;
while((len = stdOut.read(buffer)) > 0){
System.out.write(buffer, 0, len);
}
}
}).start();
While that approach kind of works, it feels a bit dirty. And on top of that, it gives me one more thread to manage and terminate correctly. Is there any better way to do this?
Java Solutions
Solution 1 - Java
Use ProcessBuilder.inheritIO
, it sets the source and destination for subprocess standard I/O to be the same as those of the current Java process.
Process p = new ProcessBuilder().inheritIO().command("command1").start();
If Java 7 is not an option
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /c dir");
inheritIO(p.getInputStream(), System.out);
inheritIO(p.getErrorStream(), System.err);
}
private static void inheritIO(final InputStream src, final PrintStream dest) {
new Thread(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
Scanner sc = new Scanner(src);
while (sc.hasNextLine()) {
dest.println(sc.nextLine());
}
}
}).start();
}
Threads will die automatically when subprocess finishes, because src
will EOF.
Solution 2 - Java
For Java 7 and later, see Evgeniy Dorofeev's answer.
For Java 6 and earlier, create and use a StreamGobbler
:
StreamGobbler errorGobbler =
new StreamGobbler(p.getErrorStream(), "ERROR");
// any output?
StreamGobbler outputGobbler =
new StreamGobbler(p.getInputStream(), "OUTPUT");
// start gobblers
outputGobbler.start();
errorGobbler.start();
...
private class StreamGobbler extends Thread {
InputStream is;
String type;
private StreamGobbler(InputStream is, String type) {
this.is = is;
this.type = type;
}
@Override
public void run() {
try {
InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(is);
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(isr);
String line = null;
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null)
System.out.println(type + "> " + line);
}
catch (IOException ioe) {
ioe.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
Solution 3 - Java
A flexible solution with Java 8 lambda that lets you provide a Consumer
that will process the output (eg. log it) line by line. run()
is a one-liner with no checked exceptions thrown. Alternatively to implementing Runnable
, it can extend Thread
instead as other answers suggest.
class StreamGobbler implements Runnable {
private InputStream inputStream;
private Consumer<String> consumeInputLine;
public StreamGobbler(InputStream inputStream, Consumer<String> consumeInputLine) {
this.inputStream = inputStream;
this.consumeInputLine = consumeInputLine;
}
public void run() {
new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream)).lines().forEach(consumeInputLine);
}
}
You can then use it for example like this:
public void runProcessWithGobblers() throws IOException, InterruptedException {
Process p = new ProcessBuilder("...").start();
Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(getClass());
StreamGobbler outputGobbler = new StreamGobbler(p.getInputStream(), System.out::println);
StreamGobbler errorGobbler = new StreamGobbler(p.getErrorStream(), logger::error);
new Thread(outputGobbler).start();
new Thread(errorGobbler).start();
p.waitFor();
}
Here the output stream is redirected to System.out
and the error stream is logged on the error level by the logger
.
Solution 4 - Java
It's as simple as following:
File logFile = new File(...);
ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder()
.command("somecommand", "arg1", "arg2")
processBuilder.redirectErrorStream(true);
processBuilder.redirectOutput(logFile);
by .redirectErrorStream(true) you tell process to merge error and output stream and then by .redirectOutput(file) you redirect merged output to a file.
Update:
I did manage to do this as follows:
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Async part
Runnable r = () -> {
ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder().command("...");
// Merge System.err and System.out
pb.redirectErrorStream(true);
// Inherit System.out as redirect output stream
pb.redirectOutput(ProcessBuilder.Redirect.INHERIT);
try {
pb.start();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
};
new Thread(r, "asyncOut").start();
// here goes your main part
}
Now you're able to see both outputs from main and asyncOut threads in System.out
Solution 5 - Java
Simple java8 solution with capturing both outputs and reactive processing using CompletableFuture
:
static CompletableFuture<String> readOutStream(InputStream is) {
return CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(() -> {
try (
InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(is);
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(isr);
) {
StringBuilder res = new StringBuilder();
String inputLine;
while ((inputLine = br.readLine()) != null) {
res.append(inputLine).append(System.lineSeparator());
}
return res.toString();
} catch (Throwable e) {
throw new RuntimeException("problem with executing program", e);
}
});
}
And the usage:
Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmd);
CompletableFuture<String> soutFut = readOutStream(p.getInputStream());
CompletableFuture<String> serrFut = readOutStream(p.getErrorStream());
CompletableFuture<String> resultFut =
soutFut.thenCombine(serrFut, (stdout, stderr) -> {
// print to current stderr the stderr of process and return the stdout
System.err.println(stderr);
return stdout;
});
// get stdout once ready, blocking
String result = resultFut.get();
Solution 6 - Java
There is a library that provides a better ProcessBuilder, zt-exec. This library can do exactly what you are asking for and more.
Here's what your code would look like with zt-exec instead of ProcessBuilder :
add the dependency :
<dependency>
<groupId>org.zeroturnaround</groupId>
<artifactId>zt-exec</artifactId>
<version>1.11</version>
</dependency>
The code :
new ProcessExecutor()
.command("somecommand", "arg1", "arg2")
.redirectOutput(System.out)
.redirectError(System.err)
.execute();
Documentation of the library is here : https://github.com/zeroturnaround/zt-exec/
Solution 7 - Java
I too can use only Java 6. I used @EvgeniyDorofeev's thread scanner implementation. In my code, after a process finishes, I have to immediately execute two other processes that each compare the redirected output (a diff-based unit test to ensure stdout and stderr are the same as the blessed ones).
The scanner threads don't finish soon enough, even if I waitFor() the process to complete. To make the code work correctly, I have to make sure the threads are joined after the process finishes.
public static int runRedirect (String[] args, String stdout_redirect_to, String stderr_redirect_to) throws IOException, InterruptedException {
ProcessBuilder b = new ProcessBuilder().command(args);
Process p = b.start();
Thread ot = null;
PrintStream out = null;
if (stdout_redirect_to != null) {
out = new PrintStream(new BufferedOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(stdout_redirect_to)));
ot = inheritIO(p.getInputStream(), out);
ot.start();
}
Thread et = null;
PrintStream err = null;
if (stderr_redirect_to != null) {
err = new PrintStream(new BufferedOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(stderr_redirect_to)));
et = inheritIO(p.getErrorStream(), err);
et.start();
}
p.waitFor(); // ensure the process finishes before proceeding
if (ot != null)
ot.join(); // ensure the thread finishes before proceeding
if (et != null)
et.join(); // ensure the thread finishes before proceeding
int rc = p.exitValue();
return rc;
}
private static Thread inheritIO (final InputStream src, final PrintStream dest) {
return new Thread(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
Scanner sc = new Scanner(src);
while (sc.hasNextLine())
dest.println(sc.nextLine());
dest.flush();
}
});
}
Solution 8 - Java
As an addition to msangel answer I would like to add the following code block:
private static CompletableFuture<Boolean> redirectToLogger(final InputStream inputStream, final Consumer<String> logLineConsumer) {
return CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(() -> {
try (
InputStreamReader inputStreamReader = new InputStreamReader(inputStream);
BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(inputStreamReader);
) {
String line = null;
while((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {
logLineConsumer.accept(line);
}
return true;
} catch (IOException e) {
return false;
}
});
}
It allows to redirect the input stream (stdout, stderr) of the process to some other consumer. This might be System.out::println or anything else consuming strings.
Usage:
...
Process process = processBuilder.start()
CompletableFuture<Boolean> stdOutRes = redirectToLogger(process.getInputStream(), System.out::println);
CompletableFuture<Boolean> stdErrRes = redirectToLogger(process.getErrorStream(), System.out::println);
System.out.println(stdOutRes.get());
System.out.println(stdErrRes.get());
System.out.println(process.waitFor());
Solution 9 - Java
It's really surprising to me that the redirection methods in ProcessBuilder
don't accept an OutputStream
, only File
. Yet another proof of forced boilerplate code that Java forces you to write.
That said, let's look at a list of comprehensive options:
- If you want the process output to simply be redirected to its parent's output stream,
inheritIO
will do the job. - If you want the process output to go to a file, use
redirect*(file)
. - If you want the process output to go to a logger, you need to consume the process
InputStream
in a separate thread. See the answers that use aRunnable
orCompletableFuture
. You can also adapt the code below to do this. - If you want to the process output to go to a
PrintWriter
, that may or may not be the stdout (very useful for testing), you can do the following:
static int execute(List<String> args, PrintWriter out) {
ProcessBuilder builder = new ProcessBuilder()
.command(args)
.redirectErrorStream(true);
Process process = null;
boolean complete = false;
try {
process = builder.start();
redirectOut(process.getInputStream(), out)
.orTimeout(TIMEOUT, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
complete = process.waitFor(TIMEOUT, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
} catch (IOException e) {
throw new UncheckedIOException(e);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOG.warn("Thread was interrupted", e);
} finally {
if (process != null && !complete) {
LOG.warn("Process {} didn't finish within {} seconds", args.get(0), TIMEOUT);
process = process.destroyForcibly();
}
}
return process != null ? process.exitValue() : 1;
}
private static CompletableFuture<Void> redirectOut(InputStream in, PrintWriter out) {
return CompletableFuture.runAsync(() -> {
try (
InputStreamReader inputStreamReader = new InputStreamReader(in);
BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(inputStreamReader)
) {
bufferedReader.lines()
.forEach(out::println);
} catch (IOException e) {
LOG.error("Failed to redirect process output", e);
}
});
}
Advantages of the code above over the other answers thus far:
redirectErrorStream(true)
redirects the error stream to the output stream, so that we only have to bother with one.CompletableFuture.runAsync
runs from theForkJoinPool
. Note that this code doesn't block by callingget
orjoin
on theCompletableFuture
but sets a timeout instead on its completion (Java 9+). There's no need forCompletableFuture.supplyAsync
because there's nothing really to return from the methodredirectOut
.BufferedReader.lines
is simpler than using awhile
loop.
Solution 10 - Java
Thread thread = new Thread(() -> {
new BufferedReader(
new InputStreamReader(inputStream,
StandardCharsets.UTF_8))
.lines().forEach(...);
});
thread.start();
Your custom code goes instead of the ...
Solution 11 - Java
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder("script.bat");
pb.redirectErrorStream(true);
Process p = pb.start();
BufferedReader logReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()));
String logLine = null;
while ( (logLine = logReader.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println("Script output: " + logLine);
}
}
}
By using this line: pb.redirectErrorStream(true);
we can combine InputStream and ErrorStream
Solution 12 - Java
By default, the created subprocess does not have its own terminal or console. All its standard I/O (i.e. stdin, stdout, stderr) operations will be redirected to the parent process, where they can be accessed via the streams obtained using the methods getOutputStream(), getInputStream(), and getErrorStream(). The parent process uses these streams to feed input to and get output from the subprocess. Because some native platforms only provide limited buffer size for standard input and output streams, failure to promptly write the input stream or read the output stream of the subprocess may cause the subprocess to block, or even deadlock.