Any way to run shell commands on android programmatically?

Question

Is there any way to run terminal commands on my application and then access the data on my UI? Specifically top.

Answer 1

Check out Log Collector as an example. Here is the relevant file: http://code.google.com/p/android-log-collector/source/browse/trunk/android-log-collector/src/com/xtralogic/android/logcollector/SendLogActivity.java

The key is here:

Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(commandLine);
BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()));

Answer 2

it also depends on what you are running in the terminal... if you are running "cat" on a file you can also do it like this.

final private String MEM_FILE = "/proc/meminfo";

public Long readMem() {
    String[] segs;
    FileReader fstream;
    try {
        fstream = new FileReader(MEM_FILE);
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        Log.e("readMem", "Could not read " + MEM_FILE);
        return false;
    }
    BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(fstream, 500);
    String line;
    try {
        while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {
            if (line.indexOf("MemTotal:") > 0) {
                Log.e("MemTotal", line);
                segs = line.trim().split("[ ]+");
                memTotal = Long.parseLong(segs[1]);
            }
            if (line.indexOf("MemFree:") > 0) {
                Log.e("MemFree", line);
                segs = line.trim().split("[ ]+");
                memFree = Long.parseLong(segs[1]);
            }
        }
        updateMem(); //call function to update textviews or whatever
        return true;
    } catch (IOException e) {
        Log.e("readMem", e.toString());
    }
    return false;
}

EDIT: There is a perfect example for you in the android labs project called netmeter. There is a class called Top.java that actually does exactly what you want and it is used in TaskList.java to be displayed. http://code.google.com/p/android-labs/source/browse/#svn/trunk/NetMeter/src/com/google/android/netmeter

Answer 3

Hi

I am also facing a similar issue.I am trying to execute the getevent from my application.I can see the process getevent running when I do ps on shell.But I dont see any logs for the touch events performed. Please help

Answer 4

Okay this is what exactly worked for me just in case anyone needs it in the future... :)

Surround in try and catch

     try{
                Process process;            
                process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("top -n 1 -d 1");
                BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()));
        }
        catch (InterruptedException e) 
        {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
    }