Shell scripting with Node.js

Question

I'm wondering if there are any node framework or node lib out there that I can use to write a shell scripts? For example, I have bash shell program to install Graphite and OpenTSDB RRD tools, I would like to use node.js for it, is it possible?

Thanks

Answer 1

Take a look at shelljs - it implemets shell and gnu coreutils-like functions. Together with coffeescript it can look very similar to a shell script:

if not which 'git'
  echo 'Sorry, this script requires git'
  exit 1

# Copy files to release dir
mkdir '-p', 'out/Release'
cp '-R', 'stuff/*', 'out/Release'

# Replace macros in each .js file
cd 'lib'
for file in ls '*.js'
  sed '-i', 'BUILD_VERSION', 'v0.1.2', file
  sed '-i', /.*REMOVE_THIS_LINE.*\n/, '', file
  sed '-i', /.*REPLACE_LINE_WITH_MACRO.*\n/, cat 'macro.js', file
cd '..'

# Run external tool synchronously
if (exec 'git commit -am "Auto-commit"').code != 0
  echo 'Error: Git commit failed'
  exit 1

Answer 2

You should check out grunt which is a toolkit for helping people write build and other scripts in node.js. There are a ton of plugins to help you easily do interesting things.

That being said, if you know Bash, I'd just stick with bash.

Check out this interesting thread on Twitter about Bash vs. Grunt scripting

What I Use Grunt For

• Running Lint Tools
• Running JS Unit Tests
• Running Pre-Processors (sass, require.js, uglify, etc.)

What I use Capistrano* For

• Deploying code to production environments

What I use Bash** for

• Setting up servers and running them, etc.

---

• * capistrano + git or chef or whatever
• ** bash or whatever other tools you'd want to use