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cross-spawn

cross-spawn

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A cross platform solution to node's spawn and spawnSync.

Installation

$ npm install cross-spawn

If you are using spawnSync on node 0.10 or older, you will also need to install spawn-sync:

$ npm install spawn-sync

Why

Node has issues when using spawn on Windows:

  • It ignores PATHEXT
  • It does not support shebangs
  • No options.shell support on node < v6
  • It does not allow you to run del or dir

All these issues are handled correctly by cross-spawn. There are some known modules, such as win-spawn, that try to solve this but they are either broken or provide faulty escaping of shell arguments.

Usage

Exactly the same way as node's spawn or spawnSync, so it's a drop in replacement.

var spawn = require('cross-spawn');
 
// Spawn NPM asynchronously 
var child = spawn('npm', ['list', '-g', '-depth', '0'], { stdio: 'inherit' });
 
// Spawn NPM synchronously 
var results = spawn.sync('npm', ['list', '-g', '-depth', '0'], { stdio: 'inherit' });

Caveats

options.shell as an alternative to cross-spawn

Starting from node v6, spawn has a shell option that allows you run commands from within a shell. This new option solves most of the problems that cross-spawn attempts to solve, but:

  • It's not supported in node < v6
  • It has no support for shebangs on Windows
  • You must manually escape the command and arguments which is very error prone, specially when passing user input

If you are using the shell option to spawn a command in a cross platform way, consider using cross-spawn instead. You have been warned.

Shebangs

While cross-spawn handles shebangs on Windows, its support is limited: e.g.: it doesn't handle arguments after the path, e.g.: #!/bin/bash -e.

Remember to always test your code on Windows!

Tests

$ npm test

License

Released under the MIT License.

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Keywords

spawn, spawnSync, windows, cross, platform, path, ext, path-ext, path_ext, shebang, hashbang, cmd, execute

Dependencies (3)

lru-cache, shebang-command, which

Dependents (1416)

vile, cookie-consent-silktide, test-test-43h4h29423, pc-react-scripts, react-scripts-ts-dw, scripy, cross-glob-spawn, @picter/react-scripts, xdc-cli, react-scripts-test, finzipper-react-scripts, jsonnull-project-scripts, rethink-install, react-scripts-custom-dpoineau, xsky-react-scripts, meshblu-connector-shell, create-cljs-app, hmr-scss-react-scripts, feeble-scripts, saturn-framework, gm-papandreou, base-npm, Create-React-App-SCSS-HMR, evv-platform-init, Yworkshell, baker-scripts, topolo, cross-run, yao-cli, create-feeble-app, @choo/cli, zoo, snorkel-cli, @rstacruz/pnpm, webbag, skypager-scripts, electron-react-app-scripts, ued, npm-batch-install, create-ts-app, create-react-ts-app, create-redux-react-app, electron-dev, l.npm, create-preact-app, @loomble/cli, PokemonGoBot, musefind-create-react-app, noll, local-ued, and more