Node.js - Easiest way to run code in a different process

Question

What is the easiest way to run some code (not command!) in a different process and communicate its result with the main process?

So I have a quite intensive task that needs to be split up into different processes. What's the easiest way to do something like this?

// in main process
var otherProcess = createAnotherProcess(function() {
    console.log("this code is ran in another process");
    return "some data";
});
otherProcess.on("done", function(data) {
    console.log(data); // will output "some data"
});

Having a single source code file that is able to run code in multiple processes would be amazing! Is this even possible? I've tried reading a bit about "child_processes" in node but find it a little too convoluted.

Any help?

Answer 1

var spawn = require("child_process").spawn;
var stat = spawn("dstat", ["-r", "--noheaders", "--nocolor"]);


var output = function (output_data) {
  //do something with output_data
};

stat.stdout.on("data", output);

http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.4.11/api/child_processes.html

Answer 2

To run some command in child process you can use child_process.spawn method.

If you want to run some heavy JS code you can split it execution to chunks to not block the IO using process.nextTick.