Summary
In this short chapter, you were introduced to the Process
class in Java. You got to see how a process that outputs to System.out
can be captured in the parent program. At the same time, you also saw how the parent can easily send data to the child. The examples showed that it is possible to launch not just your own programs, but also any other program, such as a web browser. The possibilities for building software automation with programs that include the Process
API are endless.
We also saw the importance of streams in terms of intra-process communication. Basically, you have to create streams on top of streams to develop more complex data structures, which will allow the code to run a lot faster. The next chapter will cover regular expressions.