Child Processes in Node.js

Child processes in Node.js allow you to run other programs or scripts as separate processes. This can be useful for running CPU-intensive tasks or for running scripts that may crash or hang. Child processes also enable you to communicate between multiple processes and share data between them.

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There are three types of child processes in Node.js:

• child_process.spawn() - launches a new process and allows communication with it through pipes.
• child_process.exec() - launches a new process and buffers the output.
• child_process.fork() - launches a new Node.js process and allows communication with it through IPC (Inter-Process Communication).

Using child_process.spawn()

The child_process.spawn() method launches a new process and allows communication with it through pipes. Here's an example:

const { spawn } = require('child_process');

const ls = spawn('ls', ['-lh', '/usr']);

ls.stdout.on('data', (data) => {
  console.log(`stdout: ${data}`);
});

ls.stderr.on('data', (data) => {
  console.error(`stderr: ${data}`);
});

ls.on('close', (code) => {
  console.log(`child process exited with code ${code}`);
});