How to add a timeout value when using Java's Runtime.exec()?

Question

I have a method I am using to execute a command on the local host. I\'d like to add a timeout parameter to the method so that if the command being called doesn\'t finish in

Answer 1

There are various ways to do this, but I'd consider using an Executor-- it just helps you encapsulate passing the exit value or exception from the thread back to the original caller.

    final Process p = ...        
    Callable<Integer> call = new Callable<Integer>() {
    public Integer call() throws Exception {
        p.waitFor();
        return p.exitValue();
      }
    };
    Future<Integer> ft = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor().submit(call);
    try {
      int exitVal = ft.get(2000L, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
      return exitVal;
    } catch (TimeoutException to) {
      p.destroy();
      throw to;
    }

I think you can't get round the race condition whereby the wait times out, and then process terminates just before you call destroy().

Answer 2

Following the answer by erickson, I created a more generic way to do the same thing.

public class ProcessWithTimeout extends Thread
{
    private Process m_process;
    private int m_exitCode = Integer.MIN_VALUE;

    public ProcessWithTimeout(Process p_process)
    {
        m_process = p_process;
    }

    public int waitForProcess(int p_timeoutMilliseconds)
    {
        this.start();

        try
        {
            this.join(p_timeoutMilliseconds);
        }
        catch (InterruptedException e)
        {
            this.interrupt();
        }

        return m_exitCode;
    }

    @Override
    public void run()
    {
        try
        { 
            m_exitCode = m_process.waitFor();
        }
        catch (InterruptedException ignore)
        {
            // Do nothing
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            // Unexpected exception
        }
    }
}

Now, all you have to do is as follows:

Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("<your command goes here>");
ProcessWithTimeout processWithTimeout = new ProcessWithTimeout(process);
int exitCode = processWithTimeout.waitForProcess(5000);

if (exitCode == Integer.MIN_VALUE)
{
    // Timeout
}
else
{
    // No timeout !
}

Answer 3

and here is the StreamThread

public class CommandStreamThread extends Thread{
        private InputStream iStream;
        private String cPrompt;

        CommandStreamThread (InputStream is, String cPrompt)
        {
            this.iStream = is;
            this.cPrompt = cPrompt;
        }

        public void run()
        {
            try
            {
                InputStreamReader streamReader= new InputStreamReader(this.iStream);
                BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(streamReader);


                String linesep=System.getProperty("line.separator");
                String line=null;
                while ((line=reader.readLine())!=null){
                    System.out.println(line);
                    //Process the next line seperately in case this is EOF is not preceded by EOL
                    int in;
                    char[] buffer=new char[linesep.length()];
                    while ( (in = reader.read(buffer)) != -1){
                        String bufferValue=String.valueOf(buffer, 0, in);
                        System.out.print(bufferValue);
                        if (bufferValue.equalsIgnoreCase(linesep))
                            break;
                    }
                }

                //Or the easy way out with commons utils!
                //IOUtils.copy(this.iStream, System.out);


              } catch (Exception e){
                    e.printStackTrace();  
              }
        }

        public InputStream getIStream() {
            return iStream;
        }

        public void setIStream(InputStream stream) {
            iStream = stream;
        }

        public String getCPrompt() {
            return cPrompt;
        }

        public void setCPrompt(String prompt) {
            cPrompt = prompt;
        }


}

Answer 4

Apache Commons Exec can help you to do it.

See http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-exec/tutorial.html

String line = "your command line";
CommandLine cmdLine = CommandLine.parse(line);
DefaultExecutor executor = new DefaultExecutor();
ExecuteWatchdog watchdog = new ExecuteWatchdog(60000);
executor.setWatchdog(watchdog);
ByteArrayOutputStream outputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
PumpStreamHandler streamHandler = new PumpStreamHandler(outputStream);
executor.setStreamHandler(streamHandler);
int exitValue = executor.execute(cmdLine);
System.out.println(exitValue);
System.out.println(outputStream.toString());

Answer 5

If you're using Java 8 or later you could simply use the new waitFor with timeout:

Process p = ...
if(!p.waitFor(1, TimeUnit.MINUTES)) {
    //timeout - kill the process. 
    p.destroy(); // consider using destroyForcibly instead
}