How to open interactive terminal apps with child_process? - nodejs

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Message from discussion How to open interactive terminal apps with child_process?
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Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:03:08 +0200
Message-ID: <CALm1c-E70W3ZvMtFuT-ga5KUtr+udAreTpezWQihBn-aV=w...@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: How to open interactive terminal apps with child_process?
From: James Coglan <jcog...@gmail.com>
To: Node list <nodejs@googlegroups.com>
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On 21 September 2012 12:40, James Coglan <jcog...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'd like to have my command-line Node program invoke another interactive
> shell program (in this case w3m, but think vim, less, and so on) as a child
> process so that it appears in my terminal. I thought I could do that like
> this:
>
> require('child_process').execFile('w3m', ['http://www.google.com'],
> {stdio: 'inherit'})
>
> But it turns out that doesn't work. Is this possible?
>

This is a bit better in that it displays the output from w3m, but it's not
color formatted (I guess because its stdin is not a tty) and I can't
interact with it properly:

var cp  = require('child_process'),
    w3m = cp.execFile('w3m', ['http://www.google.com']);

process.stdin.pipe(w3m.stdin);
w3m.stdout.pipe(process.stdout);

So I need to make w3m know it's writing to a tty, and forward every
keystroke from Node to the child process. I tried
process.stdin.setRawMode(true) but this just locked the process up and
CTRL-C and CTRL-Z did not work.

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<div class=3D"gmail_quote">On 21 September 2012 12:40, James Coglan <span d=
ir=3D"ltr">&lt;<a href=3D"mailto:jcog...@gmail.com" target=3D"_blank">jcogl=
a...@gmail.com</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" sty=
le=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>I&#39;d like to have my command-line Node program invoke another inter=
active shell program (in this case w3m, but think vim, less, and so on) as =
a child process so that it appears in my terminal. I thought I could do tha=
t like this:</div>

<div><br></div><div>require(&#39;child_process&#39;).execFile(&#39;w3m&#39;=
, [&#39;<a href=3D"http://www.google.com" target=3D"_blank">http://www.goog=
le.com</a>&#39;], {stdio: &#39;inherit&#39;})</div><div><br></div><div>But =
it turns out that doesn&#39;t work. Is this possible?</div>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div>This is a bit better in that it displays t=
he output from w3m, but it&#39;s not color formatted (I guess because its s=
tdin is not a tty) and I can&#39;t interact with it properly:</div><div>
<br></div><div>var cp =A0=3D require(&#39;child_process&#39;),</div><div>=
=A0 =A0 w3m =3D cp.execFile(&#39;w3m&#39;, [&#39;<a href=3D"http://www.goog=
le.com">http://www.google.com</a>&#39;]);</div><div><br></div><div>process.=
stdin.pipe(w3m.stdin);</div>
<div>w3m.stdout.pipe(process.stdout);</div><div><br></div><div>So I need to=
 make w3m know it&#39;s writing to a tty, and forward every keystroke from =
Node to the child process. I tried process.stdin.setRawMode(true) but this =
just locked the process up and CTRL-C and CTRL-Z did not work.=A0</div>
</div>

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