Question

I’m trying to make a simple java program to unhide the ~\Library\ folder on osx using terminal commands. As far as I have researched the code to run system commands from java is
Runtime.getRuntime().exec();
and is listed as such in every place I look it up.

However, my program doesn’t work. Main method below.

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

    String[] noHide = {"chflags"," " ,"nohidden"," ", "~/Library/"};
    try {
        Runtime.getRuntime().exec(noHide);
        System.out.println("library unhidden");
    } catch (Exception e ) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

This program throws no exception, and compiles and executes fine, but the Library folder simply won’t unhide. No matter what I reformat the cmd String. None of the formats below work

String noHide = "chflags nohidden ~/Library";
String[] noHide = {"chflags", "nohidden","~/Library"};
String[] noHide = {"chflags"," " ,"nohidden"," ", "~/Library/"};

If I remove the spaces they throw exceptions (well, not the String array objects). I can run the command (chflags noHidden ~/Library) absolutely fine from the osx terminal. Anyone have an idea why?

Answer 1

You need to use a try and catch, which you have. But, your main should be like this:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    String[] noHide = {"chflags", "nohidden","~/Library"};
    try {
        Runtime.getRuntime().exec(noHide);
    } 
    catch (Exception e) {
        }
    }

Basically, you don’t need throws IOException. This worked for me, so if it still isn’t working in your program, there may be a bigger problem with the way you have something set up.