little-fork

little-fork creates a simple child processes in nodejs. When a new event listener is set, it replaces the previously set listener for that event.

The API for little-fork is a subset and basic extension of node's child.fork().

Status:

Version: 1.0.2

This is beta software.

Caveats

There is a time gap between the calling of .replaceListener() and the listener table getting updated. If the child process repsonds in that time period then the previous listener will be executed.

Installation:

npm install little-fork

Use:

main program:

littleFork = require('little-fork');

// locate the worker in the same directory as the javascript file reading the `__dirname` variable
workerPath = path.join(__dirname, "worker.js");

// run the worker
worker = littleFork(workerPath);

// set listeners
worker.replaceListener("message", function (message) { console.log(message); });
worker.replaceListener("exit", function (code, signal) { console.log(code, signal); });

// send a message
worker.send({"abc": 123});

// tell the worker to quit
worker.disconnect();

// alternatively:
//worker.kill();

worker program:

// reply with the incoming message then quit
process.on("message", function (message) {
    process.send(message);
    process.exit()
});

Authors:

Andrew Engelbrecht

License:

little-fork is realeased under CC0. (CC0 License)