local proc = require'proc'

A library for creating, controlling and communicating with child processes. Works on Windows, Linux and OSX.

Status

Needs more testing.

Missing features:

• named mutexes, semaphores and events.
• kill child process automatically when the parent process exits.
• setting CPU and RAM limits.
• CPU and RAM monitoring.

API

proc.exec(cmd,[args],[env],[cur_dir]) -> p	spawn a child process
proc.exec_luafile(file,[args],...) -> p	spawn a process running a Lua script
p:kill()	kill process
p:exit_code() -> code | nil,'active'|'killed'	get process status or exit code
p:forget()	close process handles
proc.env(k) -> v	get env. var
proc.setenv(k, v)	set env. var
proc.setenv(k)	delete env. var
proc.env() -> env	get all env. vars

proc.exec(cmd,[args],[env],[cur_dir]) -> p

Spawn a child process and return a process object to query and control the process.

• cmd is the filepath of the executable to run.
• args is an array of strings representing command-line arguments.
• env is a table of environment variables (if not given, the current environment is inherited).
• cur_dir is the directory to start the process in.

Programming Notes

• only use uppercase env. var names because like file names, env. vars are case-sensitive on POSIX, but case-insensitive on Windows.
• only use exit status codes in the 0..255 range because Windows exit codes are int32 but POSIX codes are limited to a byte.
• if using proc.setenv(), use proc.env() to read back variables instead of os.getenv() because the latter won’t see the changes.

Last updated: 18 months ago | Edit on GitHub