Question

I am calling the below command using java

This is the java initialization

String fileName="C:\\temp\\A  a.txt";
String  sCmd = "cmd /c start \"\" \"" + fileName + "\"";

This is what I get when I print sCmd

 cmd /c start '" 'C:\temp\A   a.txt'

This is how I run the command

 Runtime.getRuntime().exec(sCmd);

The file name contains multiple spaces and when I run this command from Java its throwing an error because its not recognizing the multiple spaces.It works when no space or one space is there?How to handle files with multiple spaces through windows command

Sample java program

   import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

public class A
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        String fileName = "C:\\temp\\a  dfdfd   f.txt";
        File file = new File(fileName);
        String sCmd = "cmd /c start \"\" \"" + file.getAbsolutePath() + "\"";

        System.out.println("exec cmd=<" + sCmd + ">");
        try
        {
            Runtime.getRuntime().exec(sCmd);
        }
        catch (IOException e)
        {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

This gives me error when from windows side when I run the java code.

This is the java output

exec cmd=<cmd /c start "" "C:\temp\a  dfdfd   f.txt">

and I am running in Windows XP further this is not opening any file leave aside one with spaces.

Solution:

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

public class A
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        // String fileName = "C:\\temp\\a.txt";
        String fileName = "C:\\temp\\a  dfdfd   f.txt";
        File file = new File(fileName);
        String sCmd = "cmd /c start \"\" \"" + file.getAbsolutePath() + "\"";

        System.out.println("exec cmd=<" + sCmd + ">");
        try
        {
            Runtime.getRuntime().exec(sCmd.split(" "));
        }
        catch (IOException e)
        {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

cmd /c start "C:\temp\A a.txt" works from the command line.
You would need to escape the double quotes in the above command with a back slash if this command is called via Java’s Runtime.getRuntime().exec(...)