CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaandroidlinux
Vaibhav Aggarwal
Vaibhav Aggarwal

Reputation: 1411

android use java vs linux

Is there any advantage/disadvantage of executing a linux command in an android app rather than using the java alternative?

ex:

File file = new File("file.txt");
file.delete();

vs

rm file.txt

Upvotes: 1

Views: 149

Answers (1)

haylem
haylem

Reputation: 22663

Advantages?

None, really, or at least not in the general case.

I could see it as being useful if you want to invoke a separate and complex program that doesn't expose a programmatic interface. However in that case I'd still go with invoking via ProcessBuilder rather than using a system execution.

Disadvantages

  • unsafe

    If it's not your program, you don't know what it does. It may be tampered with, and it may require using different permissions and privileges.

  • unstable

    If it's not your program, you don't really know if it's there and if it always will be.

  • wasteful

    It spawns an extra process for no good reason.

  • opaque

    It's harder for you to monitor a long-running task and to check for return codes (and again the conventions for these may change in the future, which brings us back to unsafe and unstable).

Upvotes: 4

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