Question

So I am trying to make a universal app, and I am trying to make it have the ability to open applications. So, I figured out to make it open an application if it is one word, but with spaces, it never works. This is how I do it:

    if(textField.getText().startsWith("application open")){
    try {
        String string1 = textField.getText().substring(17, textField.getText().length());
        Runtime.getRuntime().exec("open /Applications/\"" + string1 + "\".app");
        textArea.append("Opening application " + string1 + "..." + newline);
    } catch (IOException ioe) {
        ioe.printStackTrace();
    }
    }

If anyone could help me out, that would be great!
Thanks in advance,
Howard Stark

Answer 1

Use the version of exec that takes a String[]:

This works for me:

String cmds[] = { "open", "/Applications/Font Book.app" };
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmds);

Whereas this doesn’t:

Runtime.getRuntime().exec("open /Applications/Font Book.app");

The latter can only use spaces to break up the command arguments, and so is parsed as the command open, followed by 2 arguments delimited by the space. The former – the version of exec that takes a String[] – is passed each argument individually, and so doesn’t have this problem.