In Node.js, you can use the ‘child\_process’ module to execute shell commands. This module allows you to create child processes in Node.js, providing the ability to spawn new processes in a variety of ways. Here’s a simple example of how to use it to execute a shell command:
```
const { exec } = require(‘child_process’);
exec(‘ls -la’, (error, stdout, stderr) => { if (error) { console.error(`exec error: ${error}`); return; }
console.log(`stdout: ${stdout}`); console.error(`stderr: ${stderr}`); }); ```In this example, ‘ls -la’ is the shell command to list all files in the current directory in long format including hidden files. The exec function takes this command as a string and executes it in a shell.
The exec function runs the command in a shell and buffers the output. It then returns the output to a callback function (as stdout or stderr) once the command has been executed and its output buffer is fully populated.
If any error occurs during command execution, the error object will contain the corresponding error information.
Keep in mind that the output of the command will be buffered in memory before being returned, so this method might not be suitable for commands that produce a lot of output that you don’t need to store in memory.
If you want to execute a command that does not need a shell (i.e., a command for which shell wildcard expansion, I/O redirection, variable substitution etc. are not needed), you can use `child_process.spawn()` instead, which does not use a shell.
