The right way to kill a process in Java
What's the best way to kill a process in Java ?
Get the PID and then killing it with Runtime.exec() ?
Use destroyForcibly() ?
What's the difference between these two methods, and is there any others solutions ?
Answer
If the process you want to kill has been started by your application
Then you probably have a reference to it (ProcessBuilder.start() or Runtime.exec() both return a reference). In this case, you can simply call p.destroy(). I think this is the cleanest way (but be careful: sub-processes started by p may stay alive, check http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4770092 for more info).
The destroyForcibly should only be used if destroy() failed after a certain timeout. In a nutshell
- terminate process with
destroy() - allow process to exit gracefully with reasonable timeout
- kill it with
destroyForcibly()if process is still alive
If the process you want to kill is external
Then you don't have much choice: you need to pass through the OS API (Runtime.exec). On Windows, the program to call will be taskkill.exe, while on Mac and Linux you can try kill.
Have a look at https://github.com/zeroturnaround/zt-exec/issues/19 and Killing a process using Java and http://invisiblecomputer.wonderhowto.com/how-to/code-simple-java-app-kill-any-process-after-specified-time-0133513/ for more info.