• gulp-child

child_process utilities for gulp.

Install

npm install --save-dev gulp-child

Usage

import gulp from 'gulp';
import child from 'gulp-child';

export const myTask = child.exec('myTask', 'some-shell-command');

$ gulp myTask
[gulp] Running 'myTask'...
[gulp] Finished 'myTask' in 1.23 ms

API

child.exec(taskName, command, [options])

Returns a task function that executes command in a child process. The task completes when the child process exits.

child.spawn(taskName, command, [options])

Returns a task function that executes command in a child process. The task completes immediately, and allows the process to run in the background. The child process is killed when the user presses Ctrl-C. If the task is run again, the previous child process is killed and a new one is spawned.

child.fork(name, function)

Returns a task function that manages a lifecycle of a forked process. The function is called with an Task Controller object that behaves as an Abort Controller.

child.setCollapseStackTrace(enable)

Collapse stack traces from child processes. When enabled, lines of stack traces including node_modules are summarized into a single line.

child.setIncludePattern(test)

Sets a string, regex, or function to test whether a line of output from a child process. If it matches, the line will not be collapsed when setCollapseStackTrace is enabled.

child.on(name, test, ...tasks)

Returns a task function that listens for events from a child process, and executes tasks when the event matches the test. The task runs forever or until aborted. The child tasks will be called for each matching event.

child.once(name, test, ...tasks)

Returns a task function that listens for events from a child process, and executes tasks when the event matches the test. The task runs once and completes when the event is matched. The child tasks will be called only once.

child.wait(name, test, ...tasks)

Returns a task function that waits for events from a child process, and executes tasks when the event matches the test. The task runs once and completes when the event is matched.

child.abort(name)

Returns a task function that aborts a child process.

child.kill(name, signal)

Returns a task function that sends a signal to a child process.

child.killAll(signal)

Returns a task function that sends a signal to all child processes.

Handling Ctrl-C

When the user presses Ctrl-C a number of times, it is handled as follows:

1. Aborts all tasks that are currently running, then exits.
2. Kills all tasks with SIGINT.
3. Forcefully kills all tasks with SIGKILL.
4. Exits immediately.