How can a Java program get its own process ID?

Question

How do I get the id of my Java process?

I know there are several platform-dependent hacks, but I would prefer a more generic solution.

Answer 1

public static long getPID() {
    String processName = java.lang.management.ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean().getName();
    if (processName != null && processName.length() > 0) {
        try {
            return Long.parseLong(processName.split("@")[0]);
        }
        catch (Exception e) {
            return 0;
        }
    }

    return 0;
}

Answer 2

The following method tries to extract the PID from java.lang.management.ManagementFactory:

private static String getProcessId(final String fallback) {
    // Note: may fail in some JVM implementations
    // therefore fallback has to be provided

    // something like '<pid>@<hostname>', at least in SUN / Oracle JVMs
    final String jvmName = ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean().getName();
    final int index = jvmName.indexOf('@');

    if (index < 1) {
        // part before '@' empty (index = 0) / '@' not found (index = -1)
        return fallback;
    }

    try {
        return Long.toString(Long.parseLong(jvmName.substring(0, index)));
    } catch (NumberFormatException e) {
        // ignore
    }
    return fallback;
}

Just call getProcessId("<PID>"), for instance.

Answer 3

Based on Ashwin Jayaprakash's answer (+1) about the Apache 2.0 licensed SIGAR, here is how I use it to get only the PID of the current process:

import org.hyperic.sigar.Sigar;

Sigar sigar = new Sigar();
long pid = sigar.getPid();
sigar.close();

Even though it does not work on all platforms, it does work on Linux, Windows, OS X and various Unix platforms as listed here.

Answer 4

You could use JNA. Unfortunately there is no common JNA API to get the current process ID yet, but each platform is pretty simple:

Windows

Make sure you have jna-platform.jar then:

int pid = Kernel32.INSTANCE.GetCurrentProcessId();

Unix

Declare:

private interface CLibrary extends Library {
    CLibrary INSTANCE = (CLibrary) Native.loadLibrary("c", CLibrary.class);   
    int getpid ();
}

Then:

int pid = CLibrary.INSTANCE.getpid();

---

Java 9

Under Java 9 the new process API can be used to get the current process ID. First you grab a handle to the current process, then query the PID:

long pid = ProcessHandle.current().pid();

Answer 5

Here's a backdoor method which might not work with all VMs but should work on both linux and windows (original example here):

java.lang.management.RuntimeMXBean runtime = 
    java.lang.management.ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean();
java.lang.reflect.Field jvm = runtime.getClass().getDeclaredField("jvm");
jvm.setAccessible(true);
sun.management.VMManagement mgmt =  
    (sun.management.VMManagement) jvm.get(runtime);
java.lang.reflect.Method pid_method =  
    mgmt.getClass().getDeclaredMethod("getProcessId");
pid_method.setAccessible(true);

int pid = (Integer) pid_method.invoke(mgmt);

Answer 6

You can check out my project: JavaSysMon on GitHub. It provides process id and a bunch of other stuff (CPU usage, memory usage) cross-platform (presently Windows, Mac OSX, Linux and Solaris)