Using Java Classes in Windows Batch Files - a simple approach for system admin
Although Java is an ideal language for implementing rich GUI applications, it is equally well-suited for the development of small console-based programs that, in turn, are p
Tutorial Details:
Implementing Console-Based Programs in Java
Fortunately, Java resembles C and C++ in many aspects. In particular, Java programs meet all of the requirements of console-based applications. To repeat, these are:
The ability to access the standard input, standard output, and standard error channels.
The ability to access the arguments that were passed upon startup.
The ability to provide a result (i.e., an exit code).
Taking this into account, Java seems a natural choice for console-based applications. There is one important drawback, though. Since the standard Java compiler (javac) produces byte code, there is no .exe file that we can put into our bin folder. The usual way to run a Java application from the command-line prompt is to invoke the Java runtime, passing it the name of the class containing the main method or a .jar file (with a manifest file that mentions where main is) to launch, plus additional arguments that will be passed to the program. Though this is perfectly OK for program-launcher scripts, it is inconvenient when writing shell scripts, since the preferred approach is to simply write a program name and pass arguments to it. In our case, this would be the class name. To solve this, we have two options:
Make them (or at least a part of them) native executables.
Make Windows think they are native.
Which approach is best for you depends on what you wish to do with your programs. There are many tools available that can transform classes into native .exe files or put wrappers around them. For example, java.net recently featured an interesting series of articles by Joshua Marinacci about how to Make Your Swing App Go Native. In this second part of the series, Joshua introduced a commercial tool called JexePack that creates native executables with unique program icons. Such wrapper programs actually launch the Java interpreter, which in turn runs the Java program. This is certainly great if your programs have to look professional; for instance, because you plan to distribute them. So theoretically, we might use this tool for our purposes as well, but this implies that for each Java class we plan to use in a batch file, we need to create an appropriate native wrapper.
Another (at least theoretical) possibility is to use the GNU Compiler for the Java Programming Language, which can create native binaries. However, installing and using the GNU Compiler Collection on a Windows-based machine is far beyond the scope of this article. So let us analyze the second approach.
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