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is there anyway to type into a notepad.exe process from a JAVA process?

Pablo
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  • Please let know why do you want to do that, so that we can answer the question in the light of that knowledge. – amit kumar Mar 20 '10 at 05:28
  • I need to copy some data that I have in a java app into a form that resides into another app (customer name, address, phone number, etc) – Pablo Mar 20 '10 at 05:46
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    There is no safe way to do this because Java can't control other applications. Yes you might be able to use a Robot, but it is not reliable because you can't guarantee that the Notepad application has focus when you invoke the Robot from Java. – camickr Mar 20 '10 at 06:03
  • Why dont you save the data in a text file in one app and read from that very text file from your other app? – Zaki Mar 20 '10 at 06:47

1 Answers1

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Yes, using the robot is the solution:

import java.awt.Robot;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;

public class Notepad {

    static int keyInput[] = { KeyEvent.VK_J, KeyEvent.VK_A, KeyEvent.VK_V,
            KeyEvent.VK_A, KeyEvent.VK_SPACE };

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

        Runtime.getRuntime().exec("notepad");

        Robot robot = new Robot();
        for (int i = 0; i < keyInput.length; i++) {
            robot.keyPress(keyInput[i]);
            robot.delay(100);
        }
    }
}

if you want to convert a String to keyEvents check this question Convert String to KeyEvents

Community
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Dominique
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