Showing the console in exported application (.exe)

yuregenu

Showing the console in exported application (.exe)

in Integration and Hardware • 4 months ago

Hi guys!

I've got an issue with my exported application that I haven't encountered in my sketch when run from Processing.
After about an hour or so, the exported application stops working. When I run the same application from Processing it doesn't have any issues. I want to go troubleshooting what exactly is failing (I'm thinking it's the serial port, but it's kind of weird that it isn't causing troubles in the sketch) but error messages are printed to the console which isn't available in an exported application.

I've read somewhere that you can start it from the commandline, but that answer was specific to .jar files. I'm working with a .exe file on a 64 bit Windows 7 system. The application was exported using an earlier version of Processing, 2.0b8.

Replies(5)

PhiLho

Re: Showing the console in exported application (.exe)

4 months ago

I don't know for the command line options (but IIRC you can set them in the text file generated during the export), but when I had a similar case, I just logged the messages to a text file:
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~philho/+junk/Processing/files/head:/_SmallPrograms/Email/
Class Logger.

akiersky

Re: Showing the console in exported application (.exe)

4 months ago

In the command line, navigate to the folder where the .exe is and type in "java [nameoftheapp].exe" and that will launch the app from the command line, giving you all the traces from the application. (I can't remember exactly, it might the same with the .jar that processing exports in the 'lib' folder rather than the exe)

Another great tool for debugging things like this is VisualVM ( http://visualvm.java.net/) that gives a great view of memory usage and other info that can help find issues.

A class logger is a great idea too for seeing issues. beware the log files can get very large depending on how much you are printing out.

good luck!

PhiLho

Re: Showing the console in exported application (.exe)

4 months ago

" java [nameoftheapp].exe"
Nah, java will not run an exe like that! (I even verified, just in case...)
You probably meant java -jar <exported jar>.jar
Will need some more voodoo if there are external library jars...
As said, look at the lib folder beside the .exe file: it has an args.txt file. It contains the arguments to use on the command line: the class to run, the jars to include in the class path.
For example, if I have Email on one line, and smtp.jar,Email.jar,core.jar on the next one, the line should look like:
java -cp smtp.jar;Email.jar;core.jar Email
(change ; to : for non-Windows)
Indeed, the println() calls go to the command line terminal used to type this command.

akiersky

Re: Showing the console in exported application (.exe)

4 months ago

Thanks PhiLho,

I thought that sounded wrong.

yuregenu

Re: Showing the console in exported application (.exe)

4 months ago

Thanks PhiLho!

I copied the error logger from your code, added a timestamper (using hour(), minute() and second() ), wrapped a big, ugly, try-catch around the entire draw with all errors redirected to the error logger and let the exported application's .exe chug away.

As I expected, it was indeed a sudden PortInUseException that didn't occur when running the sketch and the interval between occurences seems completely random. Funnily enough, after about three seconds of not finding the port, it reconnected without my code telling it to do so. That big, ugly, try-catch actually fixes the issue at the same time! I will, however, try to find a more elegant solution and try to find out the reason why it briefly disconnects in the first place.

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