Anyone know of a Multiplatform library that is similar to `java.lang.Process` but for native?

# multiplatform

[Matt Nelson]

Anyone know of a Multiplatform library that is similar to java.lang.Process but for native?

[Behzod]

How about Process in Swift? I think, the core functionality is similar.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/process

[Matt Nelson]

That's macos only unfortunately. Need something that utilizes posix_spawn for iOS tvOS watchOS

[louiscad]

What's your use case?

[Alex Dmitriev]

If you need to start a process, https://github.com/kgit2/kommand/ might help.

[Jan Holešovský]

If I'm not mistaken, apps on iOS / tvOS / watchOS are sandboxed, so you cannot do an equivalent of java.lang.Process. What you are actually trying to achieve?

[Matt Nelson]

Yes you can spawn processes on those platforms.

https://doc.rust-lang.org/beta/src/std/sys/unix/process/process_unix.rs.html#15

[Matt Nelson]

If you need to start a process, https://github.com/kgit2/kommand/ might help.

That is perfect @Alex Dmitriev!!! Unfortunately they do not have a License on their code. Unsure how anyone is using is w/o them having that sad panda

[louiscad]

@Matt Nelson It's Apache 2.0

[Matt Nelson]

Yeah that's what it says, but the LICENSE is blanked

[louiscad]

I don't expect you to end up in court for that mistake 😄

[Matt Nelson]

Also, unfortunately for they are compiling the static lib against a newer version of glibc, so odds of it working on older linux machines is nill since kotlin uses 2.19 (well, maybe 2.23 for kotlin 1.9.21?) 😢

[Todd]

You can always check the published POM for license info too: https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/kgit2/kommand-jvm/2.0.1/kommand-jvm-2.0.1.pom

[Todd]

Looks like they added it back though

[Alex Dmitriev]

@Matt Nelson, from what I see, Kommand should be a self-contained library since its dependency libkommand_core.a is also a self-contained lib with its dependencies incorporated inside the .a file (configured to be static library in Cargo.toml). Unless I’m missing something, I don’t see a runtime dependency on glibc and guess it should be able to run on older linux boxes?

[Jan Holešovský]

> Yes you can spawn processes on those platforms.
Technically yes, but I'm reasonably sure that it won't work on real device, unless it is jailbroken; or at least that was the case some 5 years ago or so when we needed to spawn on iOS & had to find out a different solution in the end... Even the code you pointed me to has `// FIXME: target_os = "ios"?` for fn posix_spawn() ...

[Matt Nelson]

> from what I see, Kommand should be a self-contained library since its dependency libkommand_core.a is also a self-contained lib with its dependencies incorporated inside the .a file (configured to be static library in Cargo.toml). Unless I’m missing something, I don’t see a runtime dependency on glibc and guess it should be able to run on older linux boxes?
Yes it is non-intuitive but the self-hosted runner for macos is using latest brew install of cross compilers, and then the rust build files do not specify compiler flag -static-libgcc . So, any libc calls will use whatever is currently on the host.

This is exactly why I built out https://github.com/05nelsonm/build-env , to ensure that at least native linux code was compiled against older versions of libc (and for reproducible builds, ofc).

[Matt Nelson]

Technically yes, but I'm reasonably sure that it won't work on real device, unless it is jailbroken; or at least that was the case some 5 years ago or so when we needed to spawn on iOS & had to find out a different solution in the end... Even the code you pointed me to has `// FIXME: target_os = "ios"?` for fn posix_spawn()

Will have to look into it again, but I remember reading that Apple "eased" that constraint a bit ago b/c they wanted people to be able to develop via iPad .

Will let ya know my results for sure.

[Matt Nelson]

Successful process execution of an executable program which was extracted to the simulator filesystem from resources via posix_spawn for iOS (and `Linux`/`macOS` too). Need to put together a working iOS application and try it out on an actual device, but things are a working.

NOTE: executables for darwin must be codesigned (which they are).