Simulate a keyboard press in a cmd program in java

[grave vortex]

Hi, I have an exe that my java application runs when I start it (ProcessBuilder). Normally, if you would just run the exe it would open a command prompt window where you can interact with it by pressing your keyboard. I want to press the 'r' key every 2 minutes to see some data about the program. how do I do that?

[cobalt lark]

<@&987246399047479336> please have a look, thanks.

[cobalt lark]

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[manic vessel]

u have to understand how the program originally got hands on the input via cmd

it works via System.in and System.out of that program

which the CMD ties to its window

processbuilder gives u full access to those two streams

so u can feed it with data and also read what it responds

[grave vortex]

alright

[manic vessel]

its sth like process.getOutputStream() and process.getInputStream()

which u can wrap with BufferedReader and PrintWriter for example

[grave vortex]

and how do i simulate the keyboard press?

[manic vessel]

and then easily interact with it

well, it depends how the program did it

if it reads it as text input from system.in

u can just literally write it text input

writer.print("r")

[grave vortex]

alright

[grave vortex]

like this?

i made a mistake; i need to press p, wait 5 seconds and then press r

and then wait 2 min

[manic vessel]

maybe u dont know, but there is TimeUnit.MINUTES.sleep(2)

and similar

much easier to read, lol

[grave vortex]

oh

lmao

thanks 😄

[grave vortex]

but is it correct?

[manic vessel]

well, it compiles

[tame jay]

https://tryitands.ee

[manic vessel]

it doesnt look "wrong"

see if it works

if not, its wrong

its for sure improvable. but u should first figure out whether the approach works or not

[hasty abyss]

You can't simulate a keyboard press, you can send text to it put you can't simulate presses