Spawning a process to run an executable

If you are looking to run a file, such as an executable, use child_process.execFile. Instead of spawning a shell like child_process.exec would, it will directly create a new process, which is slightly more efficient than running a command. The function can be used like so:

const execFile = require('child_process').execFile;
const child = execFile('node', ['--version'], (err, stdout, stderr) => {
  if (err) {
    throw err;
  }

  console.log(stdout);
});

Unlike child_process.exec, this function will accept up to four parameters, where the second parameter is an array of arguments you’d like to supply to the executable:

child_process.execFile(file[, args][, options][, callback]);

Otherwise, the options and callback format are otherwise identical to child_process.exec. The same goes for the synchronous version of the function:

const execFileSync = require('child_process').execFileSync;
const stdout = execFileSync('node', ['--version']);
console.log(stdout);