Execing Processes in Groovy
Our example demonstrates how to replace the current process with another using Groovy. Here’s the translated code and explanation:
import groovy.transform.CompileStatic
@CompileStatic
class ExecingProcesses {
static void main(String[] args) {
// For our example we'll exec 'ls'. Groovy can use the 'which' command
// to find the absolute path to the binary we want to execute.
def binary = "which ls".execute().text.trim()
if (binary.isEmpty()) {
throw new RuntimeException("Could not find 'ls' binary")
}
// We'll give 'ls' a few common arguments. Note that the first argument
// should be the program name.
def processArgs = ["ls", "-a", "-l", "-h"]
// We need to provide the current environment variables.
def env = System.getenv()
// Here's the actual process execution. If this call is successful,
// the execution of our process will end here and be replaced by
// the '/bin/ls -a -l -h' process. If there is an error, we'll catch it.
try {
def process = new ProcessBuilder(processArgs)
.inheritIO()
.environment(env)
.start()
// Wait for the process to complete
int exitCode = process.waitFor()
System.exit(exitCode)
} catch (Exception e) {
System.err.println("Error executing process: ${e.message}")
System.exit(1)
}
}
}
When we run our program, it will be replaced by ls
:
$ groovy ExecingProcesses.groovy
total 16K
drwxr-xr-x 4 user user 4.0K May 15 10:00 .
drwxr-xr-x 91 user user 4.0K May 15 09:50 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 1.3K May 15 10:00 ExecingProcesses.groovy
Note that Groovy doesn’t offer a direct equivalent to the Unix exec
system call that completely replaces the current process. Instead, we use ProcessBuilder
to start a new process and then exit our current process. This achieves a similar effect, although it’s not exactly the same as the Unix exec
.
Also, Groovy (like Java) doesn’t have a direct equivalent to the Unix fork
function. However, Groovy provides powerful concurrency features through its GPars library and Java’s concurrency utilities, which cover most use cases for fork
.