How to get information from another running program?

Question

Updated

I thought my question would get lost and I honestly didn’t even see it reopened. But taking advantage that now there was a move to update on my app. It is being developed in C# and therefore for Windows (but I can change this by changing it to C++, but they are just plans).

Question

As specifications: I need a function/procedure/library/anything that makes it possible for me to capture information from another open executable. The idea is that when my app and an emulator (like ZSNES) are open, I can retrieve information from it, such as:

• whether the window is focused or not,
• which keys were pressed (with my application obviously blurred),
• catch the window title since I know the process name,
• and, if possible, find out which game is being played (some emulators log a log, others unfortunately do not).

Answer 1

This code below lists the processes being executed by the Operating System:

import java.io.*;

public class Teste {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    try {
      Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("ps ax"); // comando que vai pegar os processos

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

      //mostra os resultados obtidos pelo comando "ps ax"
      String s;
      while ((s = resultado.readLine()) != null)
        System.out.println(s);
    } catch (Exception ex) {
      ex.printStackTrace();
    }
  }
}

Link to a site with more in-depth discussion in other languages: Detection of Running Programs