Launch VLC in Java and connect to it via rc interface

Question

I've already seen this thread, but I'm still having an issue: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1731299/starting-vlc-player-in-java It appears the Java bindings for VLC are no longer under active development and do not support everything possible on the command line anyway.

Given the following code, I can't launch VLC from a Java application on Mac OS 10.5.8 (Java 1.6) and then connect to it via the rc interface through the Terminal or another Java application.

public class Main {

public static void main(String[] args) {
    String s = null;


    try {
        //Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC -I telnet --telnet-host=localhost:4442 -I rc --rc-host=localhost:4444");
        //Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC -I rc --rc-host=localhost:4444");

        //ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder("/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC","-I rc","--rc-host=localhost:4444");
        ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder("/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC","-IRC","--rc-host=localhost:4444");
        Process p = pb.start();

        StreamGobbler errorGobbler = new StreamGobbler(p.getErrorStream(), false);
        StreamGobbler inputGobbler = new StreamGobbler(p.getInputStream(), false);
        errorGobbler.start();
        inputGobbler.start();

        System.out.println("Waiting: \n"+p.waitFor());       
        System.out.println("All done here");
        //p.destroy();
        //System.exit(0);

  } catch (IOException ioe) {
    ioe.printStackTrace();
  } catch (Exception ie) {
    ie.printStackTrace();
  }
}
}

class StreamGobbler extends Thread {
InputStream is;
boolean discard;
StreamGobbler(InputStream is, boolean discard) {
  this.is = is;
  this.discard = discard;
}
public void run() {
 try {
   InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(is);
   BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(isr);
   String line=null;
   while ( (line = br.readLine()) != null)
     if(!discard)
       System.out.println(line);    
   }
 catch (IOException ioe) {
   ioe.printStackTrace();  
 }

} }

Here is the Java application using the Apache Commons Net package that I'm trying to connect to the above app running on the same machine:

public class TelnetTest {
public static void main(String args[]) {


    TelnetClient tl = new TelnetClient();
    try {
        tl.connect("localhost", 4444);
        if(tl.isConnected()) {
            System.out.println("Connected successfully!");

            BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(tl.getOutputStream()));
            bw.write("quit");
            bw.flush();

        } else {
            System.err.println("Problem with connection");
        }
    } catch(Exception e) {
        System.err.println("Telnet connection threw an exception: "+e.getMessage());
    }
}
}

The latter app works fine if I start VLC using the commands from the first app in the Terminal. Likewise, I can't connect to the first app from the Terminal using "telnet localhost 4444" in the Terminal.

The only difference I can find is in the output from VLC. When running in the terminal:

[0x2786e8] main interface error: no interface module matched "globalhotkeys,none"
[0x2786e8] main interface error: no suitable interface module
[0x201b28] main libvlc error: interface "globalhotkeys,none" initialization failed
Remote control interface initialized. Type `help' for help.

When executing via the top Java application:

[0x4009178] main interface error: no interface module matched "globalhotkeys,none"
[0x4009178] main interface error: no suitable interface module
[0x2017a8] main libvlc error: interface "globalhotkeys,none" initialization failed
[0x4009178] main interface error: no suitable interface module
[0x2017a8] main libvlc error: interface "default" initialization failed

Can anyone help me out here? I'm at a loss. Thank you very much.

Answer 1

Found the solution on another forum: http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5145675

You have to pass the "--rc-fake-tty" argument to VLC when running under Linux or Mac apparently.