How do I get the commandline that started the process

Question

From Java, is it possible to get the complete commandline with all arguments that started the application?

System.getEnv() and System.getPropertie

Answer 1

There is a environment variable %~dp0 which returns the complete path

Answer 2

In Linux/UNIX that should be possible when you get the output of that command (run in a shell)

cat /proc/$PPID/cmdline

But that is not portable at all and should therefore not be used in Java...

Answer 3

Have a look at YAJSW (Yet Another Java Service Wrapper) - it has JNA-based implementations for various OSes (including win32 and linux) that do exactly this so it can grab the commandline for a running process and create a config that wraps it in a service. A bit more info here.

Answer 4

One option I've used in the past to maintain the cross-platform-shine is to set the command line as an environment variable prior to issuing the command.

Answer 5

Some of it is available from the RuntimeMXBean, obtained by calling ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean()

You can then, for example call getInputArguments()

The javadocs for which say:

Returns the input arguments passed to the Java virtual machine which does not include the arguments to the main method. This method returns an empty list if there is no input argument to the Java virtual machine.

Some Java virtual machine implementations may take input arguments from multiple different sources: for examples, arguments passed from the application that launches the Java virtual machine such as the 'java' command, environment variables, configuration files, etc.

Typically, not all command-line options to the 'java' command are passed to the Java virtual machine. Thus, the returned input arguments may not include all command-line options.

Answer 6

The following links may help you get there:

How to get command line arguments for a running process

get command-line of running processes

How to get a list of current open windows/process with Java?

Just as a note:

In Windows you have Process Explorer by Sysinternals that shows you the command line used to open the process. Right click the process and select Properties... You'll see Command Line in the window that is opened.