Question

To run a process in the background in an android application, you use an AsyncTask. Is there a similar way of running something in the background on a basic cmd line application in java?

Answer 1

It can be as simple as creating a class that extends Thread (excuse me, purists, but this is the shortest way:)

new Thread() {
    public void run() {
        // Do something here
    }
}.start();

There are a bunch of fancier tools in the java.util.concurrent package, which you should look at if you need to do anything more complex than this.