how to run an executable file and then later kill or terminate the same process with R in Windows
drawing on the other two answers received, this technique seems like a reasonable way to accomplish the stated goal..
# specify executable fileexe.file <- "C:\\Users\\AnthonyD\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe"# capture the result of a `tasklist` system callbefore.win.tasklist <- system2( 'tasklist' , stdout = TRUE )# store all pids before running the processbefore.pids <- substr( before.win.tasklist[ -(1:3) ] , 27 , 35 )# run the processshell.exec( exe.file )# capture the result of a `tasklist` system callafter.win.tasklist <- system2( 'tasklist' , stdout = TRUE )# store all tasks after running the processafter.tasks <- substr( after.win.tasklist[ -(1:3) ] , 1 , 25 )# store all pids after running the processafter.pids <- substr( after.win.tasklist[ -(1:3) ] , 27 , 35 )# store the number in the task list containing the PIDs you've just initiatedinitiated.pid.positions <- which( !( after.pids %in% before.pids ) )# remove whitespaceafter.tasks <- gsub( " " , "" , after.tasks )# find the pid position that matches the executable file namecorrect.pid.position <- intersect( which( after.tasks %in% basename( exe.file ) ) , initiated.pid.positions )# remove whitespacecorrect.pid <- gsub( " " , "" , after.pids[ correct.pid.position ] )# write the taskkill command linetaskkill.cmd <- paste( "taskkill" , "/PID" , correct.pid )# wait thirty seconds (so the program fully loads)Sys.sleep( 30 )# kill the same process that was loadedsystem( taskkill.cmd )
In the past, I used psKill. It is really powerful and maybe dangerous. You kill multi-procees even ina remote computer. I think you konw we must be extremely careful when we want to kill brutally process.
- Download the tool , unzip and copy in a known path.
- First time you launch is asking for liscence..You launch it from the cmd once and you agree.
Then you use somthing like this
process_name <- 'your_process_name'system(paste(path_to_pskil,'pskill ',process_name,sep=''),intern=T)
For example to kill all chrome instances, you do this
system('c:/temp/pskill chrome',intern=T) !!
EDIT
Assuming you have multi process with the same name. You can use pslist
to list all process with this name. Find the id of the process you want to kill according to its elapsed time, then call pskill by id.
For example here I want to kill , the last launched chrome process
my.process <- system('c:/temp/pslist chrome ',intern=T)[-c(1:8)]my.process[1] "chrome 3852 8 38 1052 141008 0:01:58.108 1:43:11.547"[2] "chrome 5428 8 11 202 220392 0:02:08.092 1:43:11.359"[3] "chrome 6228 8 9 146 73692 0:01:58.467 1:43:00.091"[4] "chrome 6312 6 9 130 45420 0:00:08.704 1:17:30.153"[5] "chrome 360 6 9 127 29252 0:00:01.263 0:57:01.084"[6] "chrome 5032 6 9 126 29596 0:00:00.717 0:31:39.875"[7] "chrome 2572 8 9 120 23816 0:00:00.452 0:19:10.307"## ids are orderd according to the elpased time## I use tail to get the last one## some regular expression to get the id from the string ## mine is ugly but I am sure you can do better.id <- substr(gsub("([^[:digit:]]*)", "", tail(my.process,1)),1,4)system(paste('c:/temp/pskill ', id) ,intern=T)