Process.exec and '-character

Question

I am trying to run external program from my java-program on linux-platform. One of the parameters that I send to the external program is a directory and can contain spaces so I need to surround it with " ' "-characters. For some reason this does not seem to work. When I try to run the program the external program prinst out error message "Could not find rdiff-backup repository at '/somedirectory/otherdirectory/' ". This the same error message that you get if you for example misstype the third parameter to the program. If I print out the contents of the commands array and simply copypaste it to the terminal and run the external program directly without my java-program, it works fine. Also if I remove the '-characters from my java -program it works fine except when the name of the source directory contains spaces.
public FileInputStream GetFile(String source,String destination,Calendar backupDate)
            String[] commands = new String[4];
            commands[0]="rdiff-backup";
            commands[1]="-r" +backupDate.get(Calendar.YEAR)+"-"+(backupDate.get(Calendar.MONTH)+1)+"-"+backupDate.get(Calendar.DATE);
            //commands[2]=backupPath+source;  //this works if the name of the source directory does no contain spaces.
            commands[2]="\'"+backupPath+source+"\'"; //this does not work
            commands[3]=destination;
            Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(s);
            BufferedReader stdError = new BufferedReader(new
               InputStreamReader(p.getErrorStream()));
            p.waitFor();
            while ((output = stdError.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(output);
            }

Answer 1

When you place the command and arguments as separate items in a String[] you don't need to quote the arguments since they are implicitly quoted.
commands[2]=backupPath+source;
  Also, you are not handling stdout, stderr and the return code properly. Read http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-2000/jw-1229-traps.html and implement the recomendations.
Edited by: sabre150 on Oct 17, 2008 10:24 PM