Identify a new device in java

Question

I want to know when a new device is connected.

I learned that it is possible to get all the current devices in C# using:

ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher("Select VolumeName, DeviceID from Win32_LogicalDisk Where Not (VolumeName is null)");

and then searcher.get() returns a collection of the devices.

Is there something parallel to ManagementObjectSearcher that i can use in java? If not, is there another way to get the list of connected devices? or another way to find out when a new device is being connected?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I know of no real cross platform way to do this in Java. If you're happy with a Windows only solution, the simplest solution would be to generate a C# / VBScript executable you can call from your Java program with Runtime.exec().

If you want a "nicer" solution that takes a bit more work (but still only Windows) you could use iKVM to interface between your C# and Java programs.

The only thing I can think of from a cross platform perspective (and this still uses native libraries is to use RXTX to poll an enumerate on the COM ports, and check when something changes. This won't get you a list of all the devices, and it will only work for devices that use a COM port, but depending on your needs it may be enough. The plus side with this approach is that RXTX binaries freely exist for every common platform out there.