Run a java -jar with powershell

Question

Ugh powershell...

Ok I've been reading a lot of other answer but none of them work.

What I want to do is have a powershell script that will open a jar or open a jar with a argument. This should be so simple but I can't figure out the correct way do this easily with the powershell documentation from Microsoft...

runprogram.ps1

#Pseudocode
$PathToApp = "C:\App"

IF $PathToApp exist THEN
   IF no additional argument THEN
      goto PathToApp
      Start-Process java -jar app.jar
   ELSE IF additional argument THEN
      goto PathToApp
      Start-Process java -jar app.jar $arg 
   ENDIF

ELSE
  print("Error path to app not set...")
ENDIF

then I should be able to wrtie ./runprogram.ps1 or ./runprogram.ps1 file.txt

Based on other stackoverflow post I'm sure a simple answer to this would help not only myself but many others.

Thank you for reading. And even if you don't provide a simple way to do this could you point me to some good similar examples that I could peace together. Since I and I'm sure others find powershell to be cumbersome to learn to do a simple task like this...

EDIT: In case anyone ever finds this post in the future here is something that works I made.

param(
  [string]$OpenFile
)
$AppPath = "C:\App.jar"
#Check if path exist
if (-not(Test-Path $AppPath)) {
  write-error "Path to app not found..."
} else {
  if(-not($OpenFile)) {
    Start-Process -FilePath java.exe -ArgumentList "-jar $AppPath"
  } else {
    Start-Process -FilePath java.exe -ArgumentList "-jar $AppPath $OpenFile"
  }
}

I hope this helps someone else.

I think this post has a good answer on how to pass arguments to `java.exe` from Powershell: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28691344/how-to-call-a-java-program-from-powershell — WaitingForGuacamole, Feb 24 '21 at 04:56

SRJ · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-24T05:10:51.943

Option 1 [Using Start-Job ScriptBlock]

Start-Job -ScriptBlock {
  & java -cp .\Runner.jar com.abc.bcd.Runner.java >console.out 2>console.err
}
if ( $? == "True")
   write-host("Agent started successfully")
else if ($? == "False")
   write-host("Agent did not start")

Option 2 [Using Start-Process]

Start-Process -FilePath '.\jre\bin\java' -WindowStyle Hidden -Wait -ArgumentList "-cp .\Runner.jar com.abc.bcd.Runner"

That's how i did it using above two options initially.

Option 3 [Using apache-commons-daemon]

I can suggest a better and robust alternative.

You can use apache-commons-daemon library to build a windows service for your java application and then start, stop the service very conveniently.

There is amazing youtube video which will explain apache commons daemon and how to build a windows service. I will attach the reference at the end.

References :

https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-daemon/index.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NjdTlriM1g

Let me know if need all the steps for apache-commons-daemon windows service as well.

Run a java -jar with powershell

1 Answers1