How do I make a background thread in Java that allows the main application to exit completely? This works in Linux, but not in Windows

java multithreading process background runtime.exec
Bob picture Bob · Apr 15, 2010 · Viewed 9.1k times · Source

I have a Java application that creates a new thread to do some work. I can launch the new thread with no problems.

When the "main" program terminates, I want the thread I created to keep running - which it does...

But the problem is, when I run the main application from Eclipse or from Ant under Windows, control doesn't return unless the background process is killed.

If I fork the main java process in ant, I want control to return to ant once the main thread is done with its work... But as it is, ant continues to wait until both the main process and the created thread are both terminated.

How do I launch the thread in the background such that control will return to ant when the "main" application is finished? (By the way, when I run the same application under Linux, I am able to do this with no problems).

Answer

BalusC picture BalusC · Apr 15, 2010

Your best bet is to launch a completely independent program for that, which is independent from the launching program. You can do that with Runtime#exec(), ProcessBuilder or Desktop#open().

Related questions

Process.waitFor(), threads, and InputStreams

In pseudocode, here's what I'm doing: Process proc = runtime.exec(command); processOutputStreamInThread(proc.getInputStream()); processOutputStreamInThread(proc.getErrorStream()); proc.waitFor() However, sometimes processOutputStreamInThread doesn't see any output and sometimes it does. Roughly, the method creates a BufferedInputStream of the command's output …

Read More
Thread-launched running processes won't destroy (Java)

Starting multiple threads and having each exec() then destroy() a running java process result in some of the process not being destroyed and still running after program exit. Here is some code that reproduce the issue. I noticed the more …

Read More
Extracting a process's exit code in the case of ThreadInterrupted

I have just created a process through an exec() call and I am now using its .waitFor() method. I need to catch an InterruptedException but I am not sure what I should place in the catch code block. I would …

Read More