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<p><strong>Goal</strong>: execute a program via a command line from groovy code</p><h2>Option 1: executing a string</h2><table class="wysiwyg-macro" data-macro-name="code" style="background-image: url(/plugins/servlet/confluence/placeholder/macro-heading?definition=e2NvZGV9&amp;locale=en_GB&amp;version=2); background-repeat: no-repeat;" data-macro-body-type="PLAIN_TEXT"><tr><td class="wysiwyg-macro-body"><pre>A string can be executed in the standard java way:
def command = """executable arg1 arg2 arg3"""// Create the String
def proc = command.execute()                 // Call *execute* on the string
proc.waitFor()                               // Wait for the command to finish

// Obtain status and output
println "return code: ${ proc.exitValue()}"
println "stderr: ${proc.err.text}"
println "stdout: ${proc.in.text}" // *out* from the external program is *in* for groovy
</pre></td></tr></table><p>Gotchas: Take care if you wish to pass a quoted argument that contains white space – it will be split into multiple arguments, e.g.:</p><table class="wysiwyg-macro" data-macro-name="code" style="background-image: url(/plugins/servlet/confluence/placeholder/macro-heading?definition=e2NvZGV9&amp;locale=en_GB&amp;version=2); background-repeat: no-repeat;" data-macro-body-type="PLAIN_TEXT"><tr><td class="wysiwyg-macro-body"><pre>"""executable "first with space" second""".execute()
</pre></td></tr></table><p>will invoke executable with the following arguments:</p><ul><li>arg1 = &quot;first</li><li>arg2 = with</li><li>arg3 = space&quot;</li><li>arg4 = second</li></ul><p>In such a case, you may prefer to use one of the array or list of String variations, e.g.:</p><table class="wysiwyg-macro" data-macro-name="code" style="background-image: url(/plugins/servlet/confluence/placeholder/macro-heading?definition=e2NvZGV9&amp;locale=en_GB&amp;version=2); background-repeat: no-repeat;" data-macro-body-type="PLAIN_TEXT"><tr><td class="wysiwyg-macro-body"><pre>["executable", "first with space", "second"].execute()
</pre></td></tr></table><h2>Option 2: using ant builder's exec task</h2><p>Ant has an exec task and it be accessed from the AntBuilder object</p><table class="wysiwyg-macro" data-macro-name="code" style="background-image: url(/plugins/servlet/confluence/placeholder/macro-heading?definition=e2NvZGV9&amp;locale=en_GB&amp;version=2); background-repeat: no-repeat;" data-macro-body-type="PLAIN_TEXT"><tr><td class="wysiwyg-macro-body"><pre>def ant = new AntBuilder()   // create an antbuilder
ant.exec(outputproperty:"cmdOut",
             errorproperty: "cmdErr",
             resultproperty:"cmdExit",
             failonerror: "true",
             executable: '/opt/myExecutable') {
                             arg(line:"""*"first with space"* second""")
             }
println "return code:  ${ant.project.properties.cmdExit}"
println "stderr:         ${ant.project.properties.cmdErr}"
println "stdout:        ${ ant.project.properties.cmdOut}"
</pre></td></tr></table><p>The good thing is that you now have all the ant features at your disposal and Ant will not break up quoted args containing whitespace.</p><p>See also: <a class="confluence-link" href="/display/GROOVY/Process+Management" data-linked-resource-id="79298809" data-linked-resource-type="page" data-linked-resource-default-alias="Process Management" data-base-url="http://docs.codehaus.org">Process Management</a></p>