calling a C-exe from java code

I have an executable in C which would be located on a server while my java code resides on many clients. I have to call and execute the C code on the server. For this I need to send some input to the C code and receive output back (as strings) to java on the client. (I cannot use JNI since C code should be available as shared libraries for this).

Would anybody be able to help me out how to go about doing this ?

[434 byte] By [bsms] at [2007-9-26 11:51:04]