Groovy adds the execute() method to the String and List classes. When we invoke the execute() we get a Process object back. We can get information from this object with some Groovy added methods. For example to get the output of the command we only have to access the text property. Or we can access the input and output streams to send data to the process or retrieve data from the process.
new File('.').eachFileMatch(~/.*.jpg$/) {
// Use ImageMagick convert command to create a thumbnail for a JPEG image.
def converter = "convert ${it.name} -thumbnail 100x100 thumb-${it.name - '.jpg'}.gif".execute()
converter.waitFor()
if (converter.exitValue()) {
println "Error creating thumbnail for ${it.name}:"
println converter.text
} else {
println "Created a thumbnail for ${it.name}."
}
}
// We can also use a List. Useful if arguments have spaces or
// for shell wildcards like *.
def thumbnail = ["convert", "file.jpg", "-thumbnail", "100x100", "thumb-file.gif"].execute()
thumbnail.waitFor()
println "Exit value: ${thumbnail.exitValue()}"
println "Output: ${thumbnail.text}"
