Question

What’s the easiest way to execute a Python script from Java, and receive the output of that script? I’ve looked for different libraries like Jepp or Jython, but most appear out of date. Another problem with the libraries is that I need to be able to easily include a library with the source code (though I don’t need to source for the library itself) if I use a library.

Because of this, would the easiest/most effective way be to simply do something like call the script with runtime.exec, and then somehow capture printed output? Or, even though it would be very painful for me, I could also just have the Python script output to a temporary text file, then read the file in Java.

Note: the actual communication between Java and Python is not a requirement of the problem I am trying to solve. This is, however, the only way I can think of to easily perform what needs to be done.

Answer 1

Not sure if I understand your question correctly, but provided that you can call the Python executable from the console and just want to capture its output in Java, you can use the exec() method in the Java Runtime class.

Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("python yourapp.py");

You can read up on how to actually read the output from this resource:
http://www.devdaily.com/java/edu/pj/pj010016
import java.io.*;

public class JavaRunCommand {

    public static void main(String args[]) {

        String s = null;

        try {
            
        // run the Unix "ps -ef" command
            // using the Runtime exec method:
            Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("ps -ef");
            
            BufferedReader stdInput = new BufferedReader(new 
                 InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()));

            BufferedReader stdError = new BufferedReader(new 
                 InputStreamReader(p.getErrorStream()));

            // read the output from the command
            System.out.println("Here is the standard output of the command:\n");
            while ((s = stdInput.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(s);
            }
            
            // read any errors from the attempted command
            System.out.println("Here is the standard error of the command (if any):\n");
            while ((s = stdError.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(s);
            }
            
            System.exit(0);
        }
        catch (IOException e) {
            System.out.println("exception happened - here's what I know: ");
            e.printStackTrace();
            System.exit(-1);
        }
    }
}

There is also an Apache library (the Apache exec project) that can help you with this. You can read more about it here:

http://www.devdaily.com/java/java-exec-processbuilder-process-1

http://commons.apache.org/exec/