How to start an OS process in Elixir

Question

What's the best way to start an OS process in Elixir?

I'd expect to be able to pass different parameters to it on start, capture its PID and then kill it.

Answer 1

You can use Ports to achieve this:

defmodule Shell do
  def exec(exe, args) when is_list(args) do
    port = Port.open({:spawn_executable, exe}, [{:args, args}, :stream, :binary, :exit_status, :hide, :use_stdio, :stderr_to_stdout])
    handle_output(port)
  end

  def handle_output(port) do
    receive do
      {^port, {:data, data}} ->
        IO.puts(data)
        handle_output(port)
      {^port, {:exit_status, status}} ->
        status
    end
  end
end

iex> Shell.exec("/bin/ls", ["-la", "/tmp"])