Question

Is it possible in java to programmatically run a java program?

For example, having a runnable class loaded and run as a thread?

EDIT

I see that I should have been more precise 🙂

I’ve got a .class file that I want to read and run.

The idé is that I have no ide what kind of program it is, only that it is a valid class file.
What I want to do is to be able to run the .class file as if I myself had written and compiled it.

Answer 1

Yes, you can do it through reflection if you want to execute the code within your process.

I haven’t tested this code, but it should looks something like this:

Class<? extends Runnable> theClass = 
    Class.forName(fullyQualifiedClassName).asSubclass(Runnable.class);
Runnable instance = theClass.newInstance();
new Thread(instance).start();