@types/cross-spawn

What is @types/cross-spawn?

The @types/cross-spawn package provides TypeScript type definitions for the cross-spawn library, which is a cross-platform solution for executing shell commands. This package is essential for TypeScript developers who use cross-spawn, as it enables type checking and IntelliSense support in IDEs for the cross-spawn API.

What are @types/cross-spawn's main functionalities?

Spawning a child process

This feature allows you to spawn a child process, similar to the child_process.spawn method in Node.js, but with improved cross-platform support. The code sample demonstrates how to spawn a child process to run the 'npm install' command.

import { spawn } from 'cross-spawn';
const child = spawn('npm', ['install'], { stdio: 'inherit' });

Using spawn.sync

This feature provides a synchronous version of the spawn function, which blocks the Node.js event loop while the child process runs. This can be useful for scripting and simple command execution where you need to wait for the command to complete before continuing. The code sample shows how to synchronously run 'npm install'.

import { spawn } from 'cross-spawn';
const result = spawn.sync('npm', ['install'], { stdio: 'inherit' });

Other packages similar to @types/cross-spawn

child_process

This is a core Node.js module that provides the ability to spawn subprocesses. While it offers similar functionality to cross-spawn, it lacks some of the cross-platform fixes that cross-spawn implements, such as handling of Windows file extension differences and PATH issues.

execa

Execa is a popular npm package that improves the child_process methods. It provides more detailed error handling, result parsing, and promises support. Compared to @types/cross-spawn, execa offers a higher-level API with more features but requires its own type definitions for TypeScript users.

README

Installation

npm install --save @types/cross-spawn

Summary

This package contains type definitions for cross-spawn (https://github.com/moxystudio/node-cross-spawn).

Details

Files were exported from https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped/tree/master/types/cross-spawn.

index.d.ts

/// <reference types="node" />

import * as child_process from "child_process";

declare namespace spawn {
    /**
     * The `spawn()` method spawns a new process using the given `command`, with
     * command line arguments in `args`. If omitted, `args` defaults to an empty array.
     */
    const spawn: typeof child_process.spawn;

    /**
     * The `spawn.sync()` method spawns a new process using the given `command`, with
     * command line arguments in `args`. If omitted, `args` defaults to an empty array.
     */
    const sync: typeof child_process.spawnSync;
}

/**
 * The `spawn()` method spawns a new process using the given `command`, with
 * command line arguments in `args`. If omitted, `args` defaults to an empty array.
 */
declare function spawn(command: string, options: child_process.SpawnOptions): child_process.ChildProcess;
declare function spawn(
    command: string,
    args?: ReadonlyArray<string>,
    options?: child_process.SpawnOptions,
): child_process.ChildProcess;

export = spawn;

Additional Details

• Last updated: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 00:05:18 GMT
• Dependencies: @types/node

Credits

These definitions were written by Alorel, and ExE Boss.