node-pty

What is node-pty?

The node-pty package is a Node.js library that provides bindings to pseudo terminals (PTYs). It allows you to spawn and interact with terminal processes programmatically, making it useful for building terminal emulators, remote shells, and other command-line interface (CLI) tools.

What are node-pty's main functionalities?

Spawning a Terminal Process

This feature allows you to spawn a terminal process. The code sample demonstrates how to spawn a shell process and listen for data events to capture the terminal output.

const pty = require('node-pty');
const shell = process.env[process.platform === 'win32' ? 'COMSPEC' : 'SHELL'];
const ptyProcess = pty.spawn(shell, [], {
  name: 'xterm-color',
  cols: 80,
  rows: 30,
  cwd: process.cwd(),
  env: process.env
});
ptyProcess.on('data', function(data) {
  console.log(data);
});

Resizing the Terminal

This feature allows you to resize the terminal window. The code sample shows how to resize the terminal to 100 columns and 40 rows.

ptyProcess.resize(100, 40);

Writing to the Terminal

This feature allows you to send input to the terminal process. The code sample demonstrates how to send the 'ls' command to the terminal.

ptyProcess.write('ls\r');

Other packages similar to node-pty

xterm

xterm is a front-end component that provides a terminal emulator in the browser. It is often used in conjunction with node-pty to create web-based terminal applications. While node-pty handles the backend terminal process, xterm handles the frontend display and interaction.

pty.js

pty.js is another Node.js library for interacting with pseudo terminals. It is similar to node-pty but is less actively maintained. node-pty is generally preferred due to its better support and more recent updates.

shelljs

shelljs is a portable Unix shell commands for Node.js. While it does not provide a PTY interface, it allows you to run shell commands and scripts in a more straightforward manner. It is more suitable for simple scripting tasks rather than full terminal emulation.

README

node-pty

⚠️ This project is currently under development to improve Windows support, see this issue for more details.

forkpty(3) bindings for node.js. This allows you to fork processes with pseudo terminal file descriptors. It returns a terminal object which allows reads and writes.

This is useful for:

• Writing a terminal emulator.
• Getting certain programs to think you're a terminal. This is useful if you need a program to send you control sequences.

Example Usage

var pty = require('node-pty');

var term = pty.spawn('bash', [], {
  name: 'xterm-color',
  cols: 80,
  rows: 30,
  cwd: process.env.HOME,
  env: process.env
});

term.on('data', function(data) {
  console.log(data);
});

term.write('ls\r');
term.resize(100, 40);
term.write('ls /\r');

console.log(term.process);

License

Copyright (c) 2012-2015, Christopher Jeffrey (MIT License). Copyright (c) 2016, Daniel Imms (MIT License).