Java: Open a file (Windows + Mac) [duplicate]

Answer 1

Here is an OperatingSystem Detector:

public class OSDetector
{
    private static boolean isWindows = false;
    private static boolean isLinux = false;
    private static boolean isMac = false;

    static
    {
        String os = System.getProperty("os.name").toLowerCase();
        isWindows = os.contains("win");
        isLinux = os.contains("nux") || os.contains("nix");
        isMac = os.contains("mac");
    }

    public static boolean isWindows() { return isWindows; }
    public static boolean isLinux() { return isLinux; }
    public static boolean isMac() { return isMac; };

}

Then you can open files like this:

public static boolean open(File file)
{
    try
    {
        if (OSDetector.isWindows())
        {
            Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]
            {"rundll32", "url.dll,FileProtocolHandler",
             file.getAbsolutePath()});
            return true;
        } else if (OSDetector.isLinux() || OSDetector.isMac())
        {
            Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"/usr/bin/open",
                                                   file.getAbsolutePath()});
            return true;
        } else
        {
            // Unknown OS, try with desktop
            if (Desktop.isDesktopSupported())
            {
                Desktop.getDesktop().open(file);
                return true;
            }
            else
            {
                return false;
            }
        }
    } catch (Exception e)
    {
        e.printStackTrace(System.err);
        return false;
    }
}

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Answer to your edit:

Try to use file.getAbsoluteFile() or even file.getCanonicalFile().

Answer 2

You need to look at the command open so have

Runtime.getRuntime().exec("/usr/bin/open " + file);

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Edit by Martijn
This is better, when you use spaces in your file path:

Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"/usr/bin/open", file.getAbsolutePath()});

Answer 3

At first, anything related to *.dll is windows-ish.

Perhaps you could try the code below for Linux, it can possibly also work on MAC:

import java.awt.Desktop;
import java.io.File;

Desktop d = Desktop.getDesktop();  
d.open(new File("foo.pdf"))