CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsexec
Petr MOTEJLEK
Petr MOTEJLEK

Reputation: 73

NodeJS exec without creating a child process

In NodeJS, how does one make the c-level exec call, like other languages and runtimes allow (e.g. Python's os.exec() or even Bash's exec), please?

Unlike the child_process module (and all the wrappers I've found for it so far), this would be meant to completely replace the current NodeJS process by the execed process.

What I am aiming for is to create a NodeJS cli adaptor of sorts, that you provide with one set of configuration options and you can use it to dispatch different tools that use the same configuration, but each has a different expectations on the format (some expect ENV VARs, some command-line arguments, some need a file, ...).

The reason why I am looking for such an exec call is that, once the tool gets dispatched, I have no expectation on the NodeJS process sticking around -- there's no reason for it to continue existing. At the same time, I need to tool to become the foreground process (accept all signals, control characters, ...). It seems to me that it would be possible to forward all such events from the parent NodeJS to the child tool (if I used child_process), but it seems a bit too much to implement from scratch...

Cheers!

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2355

Answers (1)

Petr MOTEJLEK
Petr MOTEJLEK

Reputation: 73

OK, so I think I have finally got it. I am posting this as an answer as it actually shows a real code example:

child_process.spawnSync(
  "bash",
  [
    "-ic",
    ["psql"],
  ],
  {
    stdio: "inherit",
  }
);

process.exit();

This will spin up bash (with control tty) and inside it psql. Pressing ctrl-c does not kill the node process; it is, as expected, sent to psql. I have no idea if it would be possible to rewrite this code in a way where the node process terminates before psql and bash, but for my use case, this does it. Maybe it would be even possible to get it done without bash, but I think that bash -i is actually the key here.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions