Calling external scrips from Java?

Question

Hi,
I am writing a Java application to call an external script, to start with a unix shell script. I need the application to not only call this script but also for the script to return some sort of value or variable to the Java application.
Is it possible for Java to get return variables from external scripts?
Thank you,
Paul

Answer 1

The following code snippet executes a given command and returns an array containing its return code and its standard error output. Hope this helps.
        private Object [] performKshCommand(String command) {
        int     iRet=-1;
        String  sRet=null;
                if (DEBUG1) System.out.println("performKshCommand\n" + command);
                try     {
                        Runtime         rt=Runtime.getRuntime();
                        Process         proc=rt.exec(command);
                        InputStream is=proc.getInputStream();
                        LineNumberReader lnr=new LineNumberReader(new InputStreamReader (is));
                        sRet=lnr.readLine();
                        String line;
                        while((line=lnr.readLine()) != null) {
                                if (DEBUG1) System.out.println(line);
                                InputStream is2=proc.getErrorStream();
                                LineNumberReader lnr2=new LineNumberReader(new InputStreamReader (is2));
                                while((line=lnr2.readLine()) != null) {
                                        System.err.println(line);
                        iRet=proc.waitFor();
                catch (Exception e) {
                        if (DEBUG) e.printStackTrace();
                        if (!DEBUG) e.printStackTrace();
                return new Object [] { new Integer(iRet), sRet} ;