Executing DOS command from within java.

Question

I have an XML file and an XSLT stylesheet.
I want to process this XML file using XSLT stylesheet from java. Using saxon.
Here is the java class I wrote --
class DOSCommand {
public void exec_command(String[] cmd) {
try {
Process child = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmd);
} catch (IOException e){
System.out.println("Error");
System.out.println(e.getMessage());
finally{
System.out.println("Finally");
In my servlet class I am instantiating the DOSCommand object and calling the method
DOSCommand d = new DOSCommand();
String[] c = {  "c:\\Program Files\\saxon\\saxon.exe", "-o",
"PO.html", "ePO.xml", "POE.xsl"
d.exec_command(c);
But I am not getting results. It does not give any error. But does not process the XML file and the Date/timestamp of PO.html does not change.
I know that Definition/Creation of DOSCommand object is not necesssary here. But we can disregard it.
Please let me know where I am going wrong !
Avinash.

Answer 1

Probably where you are going wrong is in failing to specify your working directory, so your command can't find "PO.html" and so on in the default working directory for that command. But that's not really the answer. The answer is not to do it in that way in the first place. Saxon has a Java API and its documentation has a section entitled "Embedding Saxon in an application".