A quicker way is this:

public static String execCmd(String cmd) throws java.io.IOException {
    java.util.Scanner s = new java.util.Scanner(Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmd).getInputStream()).useDelimiter("\\A");
    return s.hasNext() ? s.next() : "";
}

Which is basically a condensed version of this:

public static String execCmd(String cmd) throws java.io.IOException {
    Process proc = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmd);
    java.io.InputStream is = proc.getInputStream();
    java.util.Scanner s = new java.util.Scanner(is).useDelimiter("\\A");
    String val = "";
    if (s.hasNext()) {
        val = s.next();
    }
    else {
        val = "";
    }
    return val;
}

I know this question is old but I am posting this answer because I think this may be quicker.

Edit (For Java 7 and above)

Need to close Streams and Scanners. Using AutoCloseable for neat code:

public static String execCmd(String cmd) {
    String result = null;
    try (InputStream inputStream = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmd).getInputStream();
            Scanner s = new Scanner(inputStream).useDelimiter("\\A")) {
        result = s.hasNext() ? s.next() : null;
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return result;
}

Note that we're reading the process output line by line into our StringBuilder. Due to the try-with-resources statement we don't need to close the stream manually. The ProcessBuilder class let's us submit the program name and the number of arguments to its constructor.

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;

public class ProcessOutputExample
{
    public static void main(String[] arguments) throws IOException,
            InterruptedException
    {
        System.out.println(getProcessOutput());
    }

    public static String getProcessOutput() throws IOException, InterruptedException
    {
        ProcessBuilder processBuilder = new ProcessBuilder("java",
                "-version");

        processBuilder.redirectErrorStream(true);

        Process process = processBuilder.start();
        StringBuilder processOutput = new StringBuilder();

        try (BufferedReader processOutputReader = new BufferedReader(
                new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()));)
        {
            String readLine;

            while ((readLine = processOutputReader.readLine()) != null)
            {
                processOutput.append(readLine + System.lineSeparator());
            }

            process.waitFor();
        }

        return processOutput.toString().trim();
    }
}

Prints:

java version "1.8.0_45"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_45-b15)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.45-b02, mixed mode)

Convert the stream to string as discussed in Get an OutputStream into a String and simply use Sysrem.out.print()

I believe this is what you're looking for:

  String line;
  Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(...);
  BufferedReader input = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()));
  while ((line = input.readLine()) != null) {
    System.out.println(line);
  }
  input.close();