ProcessBuilder: Forwarding stdout and stderr of started processes without blocking the main thread

Use ProcessBuilder.inheritIO, it sets the source and destination for subprocess standard I/O to be the same as those of the current Java process.

Process p = new ProcessBuilder().inheritIO().command("command1").start();

If Java 7 is not an option

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /c dir");
    inheritIO(p.getInputStream(), System.out);
    inheritIO(p.getErrorStream(), System.err);

}

private static void inheritIO(final InputStream src, final PrintStream dest) {
    new Thread(new Runnable() {
        public void run() {
            Scanner sc = new Scanner(src);
            while (sc.hasNextLine()) {
                dest.println(sc.nextLine());
            }
        }
    }).start();
}

Threads will die automatically when subprocess finishes, because src will EOF.

For Java 7 and later, see Evgeniy Dorofeev's answer.

For Java 6 and earlier, create and use a StreamGobbler:

StreamGobbler errorGobbler = 
  new StreamGobbler(p.getErrorStream(), "ERROR");

// any output?
StreamGobbler outputGobbler = 
  new StreamGobbler(p.getInputStream(), "OUTPUT");

// start gobblers
outputGobbler.start();
errorGobbler.start();

...

private class StreamGobbler extends Thread {
    InputStream is;
    String type;

    private StreamGobbler(InputStream is, String type) {
        this.is = is;
        this.type = type;
    }

    @Override
    public void run() {
        try {
            InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(is);
            BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(isr);
            String line = null;
            while ((line = br.readLine()) != null)
                System.out.println(type + "> " + line);
        }
        catch (IOException ioe) {
            ioe.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

A flexible solution with Java 8 lambda that lets you provide a Consumer that will process the output (eg. log it) line by line. run() is a one-liner with no checked exceptions thrown. Alternatively to implementing Runnable, it can extend Thread instead as other answers suggest.

class StreamGobbler implements Runnable {
    private InputStream inputStream;
    private Consumer<String> consumeInputLine;

    public StreamGobbler(InputStream inputStream, Consumer<String> consumeInputLine) {
        this.inputStream = inputStream;
        this.consumeInputLine = consumeInputLine;
    }

    public void run() {
        new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream)).lines().forEach(consumeInputLine);
    }
}

You can then use it for example like this:

public void runProcessWithGobblers() throws IOException, InterruptedException {
    Process p = new ProcessBuilder("...").start();
    Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(getClass());

    StreamGobbler outputGobbler = new StreamGobbler(p.getInputStream(), System.out::println);
    StreamGobbler errorGobbler = new StreamGobbler(p.getErrorStream(), logger::error);

    new Thread(outputGobbler).start();
    new Thread(errorGobbler).start();
    p.waitFor();
}

Here the output stream is redirected to System.out and the error stream is logged on the error level by the logger.

It's as simple as following:

    File logFile = new File(...);
    ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder()
        .command("somecommand", "arg1", "arg2")
    processBuilder.redirectErrorStream(true);
    processBuilder.redirectOutput(logFile);

by .redirectErrorStream(true) you tell process to merge error and output stream and then by .redirectOutput(file) you redirect merged output to a file.

Update:

I did manage to do this as follows:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    // Async part
    Runnable r = () -> {
        ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder().command("...");
        // Merge System.err and System.out
        pb.redirectErrorStream(true);
        // Inherit System.out as redirect output stream
        pb.redirectOutput(ProcessBuilder.Redirect.INHERIT);
        try {
            pb.start();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    };
    new Thread(r, "asyncOut").start();
    // here goes your main part
}

Now you're able to see both outputs from main and asyncOut threads in System.out

There is a library that provides a better ProcessBuilder, zt-exec. This library can do exactly what you are asking for and more.

Here's what your code would look like with zt-exec instead of ProcessBuilder :

add the dependency :

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.zeroturnaround</groupId>
  <artifactId>zt-exec</artifactId>
  <version>1.11</version>
</dependency>

The code :

new ProcessExecutor()
  .command("somecommand", "arg1", "arg2")
  .redirectOutput(System.out)
  .redirectError(System.err)
  .execute();

Documentation of the library is here : https://github.com/zeroturnaround/zt-exec/