Sometimes, we want to run a command line binary with Node.js.

In this article, we’ll look at how to run a command line binary with Node.js.

How to run a command line binary with Node.js?

To run a command line binary with Node.js, we can use the child_process module.

For instance, we write

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

exec('cat *.js bad_file | wc -l', (err, stdout, stderr) => {
  if (err) {
    return;
  }
  console.log(`stdout: ${stdout}`);
  console.log(`stderr: ${stderr}`);
});

to call exec with the command we want to run and the callback that runs when the command is done.

In the callback we return the standout output content with stdout.

And we return the standard error output with stderr.

Conclusion

To run a command line binary with Node.js, we can use the child_process module.