Hi Erik, >I thought in direction too, but I don't know if I can apply it. I'm starting three >threads. One feeds input to stdin; the two others capture output from stdout and >stderr. I shouldn't interfere or block anything until the child process has exited; >the threads should run inimpeded until then. Would you know how to introduce an >object here? You don't need an object. See the JavaDoc for Thread.join(). You seem to be going down the path suggested in this nice article (cf. StreamGobbler): http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-2000/jw-1229-traps_p.html I prettied this up once, but can't find the code anymore. I think I might have also added a Thread.join(), but can't remember. -- Mohan http://www.thisiscool.com/ http://www.animalsong.org/