IOException File not found - While using Runtime.exec

Question

Hey All,
I have written a Java application which needs to start up another external application. I have executables for that external application for different platforms (Win32, PPC and Linux). When the Java application is started it detects the OS and starts up the right executable according to the OS. The executable loads up fine on Windows without any problems. But in both Linux and Max OS X I get this exception:
java.io.IOException: java.io.IOException: "/home/vilas/Documents/Project/build/CLISP/linux/lisp.run": not found
        at java.lang.UNIXProcess.<init>(UNIXProcess.java:143)
        at java.lang.Runtime.execInternal(Native Method)
        at java.lang.Runtime.exec(Runtime.java:566)
        at java.lang.Runtime.exec(Runtime.java:428)
        at jplan.communication.lispserver.LispServer.startupServer(LispServer.java:143)
        at jplan.communication.lispserver.LispServer.run(LispServer.java:109)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:534)lisp.run has all the necessary permissions. If I copy the string (/home/vilas/Documents/Project/build/CLISP/linux/lisp.run) and paste it in a terminal and press enter, the application starts up fine without any problems!! Can you please tell me what could be going wrong?
The following extra information maybe helpfull:
1) I use the exec(String command, String[] envp, File dir) version of exec.
2) The complete format of the command is as follows (one long string):
"/home/vilas/Documents/Project/build/CLISP/linux/lisp.run" -B "/home/vilas/Documents/Project/build/CLISP/linux" -M "/home/vilas/Documents/Project/build/CLISP/linux/lispinit.mem" -i loader.lisp
Thanks in advance for your time and efforts.

Answer 1

I found the problem after extensively searing the forums (looking upto page 4 !! of the results). The problem was that I was using quotes to surround the paths in the command. If you copy and paste it in a terminal it will work fine but it does not work with runtime.exec. I am not sure, but I think the reason is that when a terminal is used, some pre-processing of the commands take place before they are passed onto the OS(shell). But while using runtime.exec, that pre-processing is not peformed and therefore some things will not work.
In order to fix the problem, I use quotes only when the OS is windows. In other cases(OS X, Linux) I escape the spaces i.e. replace " " with "\ ".
PS: The executable is a binary compiled from C code.