Question

The code below describes a Java situation. I used some psudocode in the getRuntime().exec function; but, the main point is that a new file is created.

Although the second line causes an error the first time it is run I can see the new file has been created. Also, the 2nd time I run it, it works; I mean to say the 2nd time it is run, it can read the file created on the previous run. So, the best I can figure is that the 2nd line needs to wait until the new file is created (~1,000 lines of text).

Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[] {"Do something that writes a new file",  "c:/"+newFileName+".xml"});

...

 File fileToParse = new File("c:/"+newFileName+".xml");

Answer 1

Creating files can be done natively in Java using the File.createNewFile() method. That is much nicer and clearer.

File fileThatShouldBeCreated = new File("C:\\" + newFileName + ".xml");
fileThatShouldBeCreated.createNewFile(); // Create it!
System.out.println(fileThatShouldBeCreated.exists()); // Check if it exists.

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Since you told us that you use a utility which doesn’t simply create a file but also write data to it, this doesn’t answer the question, of course.

In addition to JB Nizet’s answer, I want to tell that I had some problems with the waitFor() method. It didn’t want to return. I guess it was because of I didn’t read all the output of the process (by stdout). What do others think about this? Is this a relevant conclusion? I just read the first couple of lines of the output and called waitFor(), but there was still a lot of other output after those couple of lines.