PATHJava Developer Documentation > Mac OS Runtime for Java > MRJToolkit > Programming With MRJToolkit

Finding an Application With a Given Creator

If you want to find an application with a given creator, you can call the findApplication method. For example, if you have an HTML file with a given browser's creator, you can search for the browser and then open the file with it. The code fragment in Listing 1-3 searches for the SimpleText application and then launches it by passing the file to Runtime.runtime.exec . (In a similar manner, you could search for a browser and have it open a local HTML file.)

Listing 1-3 Finding the path to an application



 
try {

        File cw = MRJFileUtils.findApplication(new MRJOSType("ttxt"));



        // launch SimpleText with our new text file

        String params[] = { cw.toString(), f.toString() };



        // parameters to runtime exec:

        // { AppToRun, FileToOpen, ... }

        Runtime.getRuntime().exec(params);



    } catch (Exception e) {

        fail("Can't find SimpleText", e);

        return;

        }

The findApplication method searches the Mac OS desktop database looking for an application with the correct creator. If more than one copy of the application exists, findApplication may find a copy different from the one you expect, depending on the state of the desktop database.