Get process output without blocking

Question

I want to get a process\' output (Git.exe to be exact) and convert it to a String object. Previously sometimes my code was blocked. Then I figured out that it\'s be

Answer 1

Using this beautiful article and the StreamGobbler class described there (which I modified a little) I solved the problem. My implementation of StreamGobbler:

class StreamGobbler extends Thread {
    InputStream is;
    String output;

    StreamGobbler(InputStream is) {
        this.is = is;
    }

    public String getOutput() {
        return output;
    }

    public void run() {
        try {
            StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
            IOUtils.copy(is, writer);
            output = writer.toString();
        } catch (IOException ioe) {
            ioe.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

and my function is:

public static String runProcess(String executable, String parameter) {
    try {
        String path = String.format("%s %s", executable, parameter);
        Process pr = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(path);

        StreamGobbler errorGobbler = new StreamGobbler(pr.getErrorStream());
        StreamGobbler outputGobbler = new StreamGobbler(pr.getInputStream());

        // kick them off concurrently
        errorGobbler.start();
        outputGobbler.start();

        pr.waitFor();
        return outputGobbler.getOutput();
    } catch (Exception e) {
        return null;
    }
}