Can I find out if the java program was launched using java or javaw

Question

This is related to an earlier question by a different user, asking How to detect that code is running inside eclipse IDE.

I noticed that Eclipse always launches prog

Answer 1

System.console() will return null, since the only difference between using java and javaw is that for javaw, there is no associated console window.

Here's a small test program you can use to demonstrate that:

import javax.swing.JOptionPane;
public class ConsoleTest {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        if (System.console() == null) {
            JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "System.console() is null");
        } else {
           JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "System.console() is not null");
        }
    }
}

However, when running from within Eclipse, System.console() will still return null, even when started with java.

In Eclipse's launch configuration, JRE tab, if you change the Runtime JRE to Alternate JRE, you can then change the Java executable from javaw to java.