I was wondering if it was possible to call a unix command directly from a Java program during run-time. This command could very very basic e.g. "ps -ef" returned as a string, all I need is a starting place so if anyone has any suggestion or examples I would be very grateful

A good example of what you want is at...

http://www.devdaily.com/java/edu/pj/...pj010016.shtml

...the code snippit...

...
// run the Unix "ps -ef" command

Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("ps -ef");

BufferedReader stdInput = new BufferedReader(new
InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()));

BufferedReader stdError = new BufferedReader(new
InputStreamReader(p.getErrorStream()));

// read the output from the command

System.out.println("Here is the standard output of the command:\n");
while ((s = stdInput.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(s);
}

// read any errors from the attempted command

System.out.println("Here is the standard error of the command (if any):\n");
while ((s = stdError.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(s);
}

...

Thanks,
That does the trick nicely