RE: [Wrapper-user] Wrapper causes zombie procecesses started from Runtime.getRuntime( exec ( cmd ) );

[Ted H. <thu...@ro...>]

Leif and Sal,
Leif, Sal,

Thank you very much for detailed your responses.  You have given me a
multiple areas to investigate, but I may have already been down some of
these paths.

1) Possible unacknowledged error dialogs:
I was reasonably certain that the line in my VB script:
  objExcel.DisplayAlerts = False

would suppress error dialogs to the user.   And I did thoroughly test the VB
script standalone (from the console) and from JBoss unwrapped.  But I will
revisit this as a possibility.  I see that your script has the following
line which I shall add:
  xlObj.SetWarnings = false

2) Path or working directory problems:
I didn't think this would be an issue, as I pass all arguments on the
command line, and refer to the template Excel spreadsheet with an absolute,
not relative, filesystem path.

My additional investigation yesterday led me to believe that my problem
might be in how I construct the cmd string in this line:
  Runtime.getRuntime( exec( cmd.toString() ) );

These two links indicated this might be the problem:
  http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/   (See Process and Runtime
classes)
  http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-2000/jw-1229-traps.html


The first article specifically warns of issues in the Windows environment.

Per the second article's suggestion, I switched to a different version of
the overloaded exec() method.  Now using String[] cmdArray as argument
instead of a long cmd String.   Also, I added StreamGobbler class and the
constructs of the GoodWinExec.java example.  

After making these changes, I had the same result as before:  It works in an
unwrapped JBoss, but not the wrapped JBoss.
 
3) Making Excel visible.  Yes, I do reset this flag during debugging.  
  objExcel.Visible = True
Very fun to watch!
   
4) We tried changing the value of the wrapper.ntservice.interactive  flag
but it did not have any apparent effect.

5) VB On Error block.
I also am not a VB expert nor have I done any registry hacking but I will
definitely investigate this.

Re: Sal's suggestions:
1) I was unaware of Poi  http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/index.html
Reading & writing Excel format files is useful but to leverage the Excel
object model and to use Excel's computation engine, Excel has to be running.

2) Java Mail API.  I use this elsewhere in the application for some separate
functionality that generates PDF documents then emails them.  Works great!
We considered reusing that functionality here but decided against PDF format
in favor of Excel because of certain computation and tabular formatting
where Excel is better suited.  The PDF generation runs in process and
synchronously, blocking email until the PDF doc is written to the file
system. 
We also wanted the Excel process to run asynchronously and not have to block
the email waiting on the file.  Since the Excel object model allows emailing
natively, this seemed cleaner than writing a file and having another process
reopen it to send it.  

The Excel email capability works fine when exec()'ed from an unwrapped
JBoss.


Regards,
Ted

-----Original Message-----
From: wra...@li...
[mailto:wra...@li...] On Behalf Of Leif
Mortenson
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 12:39 AM
To: wra...@li...
Subject: Re: [Wrapper-user] Wrapper causes zombie procecesses started from
Runtime.getRuntime( exec ( cmd ) );

Ted,
I wish you had posted this a couple weeks ago. I had to figure out how 
to do this for a
client. Got it all figured out last week.

I was having the same problem when running as a service. The problem is 
actually not
related to the Wrapper. If Excel runs into any problems while it is 
running, it will pop up an
error dialog and not continue until a user has accepted it. The problem 
of course is that
when running as a service, there is no way to see the dialog.

I solved this by including the root function in an On Error block which 
stores the error
message into the registry and then returns. The cscript then waits for 
Excel to quit and
checks for an error message in the registry. If there is an error then I 
can proceed to log
it. Not sure if that is the best way to do it. In fact, I thought it was 
rather sloppy... But
it gets the job done.

My Java code also included some timeout code to kill the cscript process 
if it takes too
long to complete. But the problem is that Excel is a child process of 
the cscript process,
so killing the script process does not get rid of Excel.

To figure out what the error is, I would try running in console mode 
until you have gotten
things working. All paths etc should then be the same when running as a 
service. My first
guess would be that you are having a path problem. The working directory 
might not be
getting set to what you are expecting.

You may be able to display Excel as it runs if you remove the flags that 
hide it from your
cscript. Have not tested it, but you may be able to get it to be visible 
when running as a
service by setting the wrapper.ntservice.interactive property.

Here are some fragments from the code that I implemented. It has been 
many a year since
I last touched VBA so you may have some suggestions on how I could do 
things better as
well :-)

First, my cscript, it takes the name of a csv formatted txt file and 
then uses Excel to generate a
set of HTML reports which are then zipped up and placed into a 
directory. The only way I
could figure out how to pass info back and forth between Excel was to 
use the registry. :-P
---
On Error Resume Next
if WScript.arguments.count = 3 then
set shell = CreateObject ("WScript.Shell")

' Get the full base file.
fullFile = WScript.arguments(0)
WScript.echo "arg[0] Full File: " & fullFile

excelFile = WScript.arguments(1)
WScript.echo "arg[1] Excel File: " & excelFile

report = WScript.arguments(2)
WScript.echo "arg[1] Report: " & report

' Strip off the path and extension
set fsObj = WScript.CreateObject ("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set fileObj = fsObj.GetFile (fullFile)
fileBase = fileObj.Name
If Right (fileBase, 4) = ".txt" then
fileBase = Left(fileBase, Len(fileBase) - 4)
End If
WScript.echo "File Base: " & fileBase

' Store the location of the file into the Registry
Shell.RegWrite "HKCU\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\File 
Passing\LINE NEWS\" &report, fileBase & ".txt", "REG_SZ"

' Store the location of the application root into the Registry
set fsObj = WScript.CreateObject ("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set fileObj = fsObj.GetFile (excelFile)
set parentObj = fileObj.ParentFolder.ParentFolder
Shell.RegWrite "HKCU\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\File 
Passing\LINE NEWS\ROOT", parentObj.Path, "REG_SZ"

Shell.RegWrite "HKCU\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\File 
Passing\LINE NEWS\" &report& "_ERR", "", "REG_SZ"

' Load Excel to run its vba script.
WScript.echo "Launching Excel..."
set xlObj = CreateObject ("Excel.Application")
'xlObj.visible = false
xlObj.SetWarnings = false
xlObj.Workbooks.Open fileObj.Path
xlObj.run "auto_open"
xlObj.quit
set xlObj=Nothing
WScript.echo "Excel Completed."

excelErr = Shell.RegRead("HKCU\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\File 
Passing\LINE NEWS\" &report& "_ERR")
If excelErr <> "" then
WScript.echo "Excel had errors: " & excelErr
WScript.quit 1
End If

' Store the generated HTML report along with its files into a ZIP via a 
temporary file.
zipFile = "..\..\shinbun-data\import\" & fileBase & ".zip"
tempFile = "..\..\shinbun-data\import\" & fileBase & ".tmp"
WScript.echo "tempFile: " & tempFile
WScript.echo "Generating Report Archive: " & zipFile
'WScript.echo "tempFile: " & tempFile
shell.Run "jar cvf " & tempFile & " -C ..\work\generate " & fileBase & 
".files", 0, true
shell.Run "jar uvf " & tempFile & " -C ..\work\generate " & fileBase & 
".htm", 0, true

'Rename the temp file to its final name
'set objFSO = CreateObject( "Scripting.FileSystemObject" )
'objFSO.DeleteFile zipFile
fsObj.MoveFile tempFile, zipFile

'Delete zip source files
'fsObj.DeleteFile "..\work\generate\" & fileBase & ".files\*.*"
fsObj.DeleteFile "..\work\generate\" & fileBase & ".htm"
'WScript.echo "------" & "..\work\generate\" & fileBase & ".files"
set folderObj = fsObj.GetFolder ("..\work\generate\" & fileBase & ".files")
folderObj.Delete

WScript.echo "Done."
WScript.quit 0
else
WScript.echo "Usage: cscript generate_report.vbs <data file> <excel 
file> <report>"
WScript.quit 1
end if
---

The Excel code was not all written by me. I just added the error 
trapping and registry
code. The original script had been run manually to generate the HTML files.
---
Sub Auto_Open()
Dim Msg As String, Style As Integer, Response As Integer
Dim File_CheckFLG As String, FileName As String, RootPath As String, 
workDir As String

On Error GoTo DeathHandler

RootPath = GetSetting("File Passing", "LINE NEWS", "ROOT", "NONE")
workDir = "\work\"
DIR_WK = RootPath & workDir & "generate\"
DIR_DAT1 = RootPath & "\..\shinbun-data\import\"
DIR_DAT2 = RootPath & "\shell\"
DIR_DAT3 = RootPath & workDir & "generate\"

Application.WindowState = xlMaximized
ActiveWindow.Visible = False
ChDrive Left(DIR_WK, 1)
ChDir Left(DIR_WK, (Len(DIR_WK) - 1))

Msg = "Lead Time"
Style = vbOKCancel
Response = vbOK
If Response = vbOK Then
Dbpart_Flag = 0

DIR_WK2 = DIR_DAT1
FILE_TXT = GetSetting("File Passing", "LINE NEWS", "LT", "NONE")
If Right(FILE_TXT, 3) = "txt" Then
FileName = Left(FILE_TXT, Len(FILE_TXT) - 4)
Else
FileName = FILE_TXT
End If

If Len(DIR_WK2 & FILE_TXT) = 0 Then
File_CheckFLG = ""
Else
On Error Resume Next
File_CheckFLG = Dir(DIR_WK2 & FILE_TXT)
On Error GoTo DeathHandler
End If

If Len(File_CheckFLG) <> 0 Then


'
' Snip guts that generate the data
'

Windows(FILE_WK0).Activate
ActiveWindow.Visible = True
ActiveWindow.Close saveChanges:=False

' Save the HTML
Application.ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets("LTGraph").SaveAs 
FileName:=DIR_DAT3 & FileName, FileFormat:=xlHtml

Else
Msg = "Bad input file." & Chr(13) & Chr(10)
Style = vbOKOnly
Response = MsgBox(Msg, Style)

End If

End If

Msg = "Lead Time complete." & Chr(13) & Chr(10)

Style = vbOKCancel

ActiveWindow.Visible = True
ActiveWindow.Close saveChanges:=False

Exit Sub

DeathHandler:
Msg = "Error #" & Err.Number & " in " & Err.Source & " : " & Err.Description
SaveSetting "File Passing", "LINE NEWS", "LT_ERR", Msg

Err.Clear
Exit Sub
End Sub
---

Hope that makes sense to you.

Cheers,
Leif

Ted Hudacko wrote:

> We have been using the Java Service Wrapper successfully for the past 
> year with JBoss 3.2.1. It has worked flawlessly. However we just added 
> a new application feature using the Java Runtime class to spawn a VB 
> script in the operating system environment (Windows Script Host 
> environment or 'cscript'). The VB script starts an instance of Excel, 
> inserts some values, does some processing, then emails the 
> spreadsheet. Excel is instructed to exit at the final line of the VB 
> script. The VB script works fine in standalone mode. It also works 
> correctly when JBoss is run without the Java Service Wrapper.
>
> However, when JBoss is wrapped, Excel never exits. Repeated executions 
> cause multiple, zombie versions of Excel to hang around, consuming 
> memory & resources. It is not always possible to kill these zombies 
> Excel's from the Windows Task Manager. A reboot is often required. 
> (This is Windows 2000 Server).
>
> It seems that the Java Service Wrapper interferes with one or more of 
> the following:
>
> 1) the java Runtime class
>
> 2) the Windows Script Host Environment (cscript) or
>
> 3) Excel
>
> Recommendations or suggested gladly welcome! Thank you.
>
> My JSP code looks like this:
>
> StringBuffer cmd;
>
> cmd.append( "cscript C:\\src\\excel.vbs fo...@ba... 
> <mailto:fo...@ba...>" );
>
> Runtime.getRuntime( exec( cmd.toString() ) );
>
> My VB script (excel.vbs) looks like this:
>
> Set objExcel = CreateObject( "Excel.Application" )
>
> objExcel.DisplayAlerts = False
>
> objExcel.Visible = False
>
> Set wb = objExcel.Workbooks.Open( "C:\src\template.xls" )
>
> .
>
> Set address = WScript.Arguments(0)
>
> wb.SendMail address, "title", False
>
> wb.Close False
>
> objExcel.Quit
>
> WScript.Quit
>
> I am using wrapper_win32_3.0.5
>



-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email is sponsored by BEA Weblogic Workshop
FREE Java Enterprise J2EE developer tools!
Get your free copy of BEA WebLogic Workshop 8.1 today.
http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=4721&alloc_id=10040&op=click
_______________________________________________
Wrapper-user mailing list
Wra...@li...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wrapper-user