How to execute shell command in Javascript

Solution 1:

I'll answer assuming that when the asker said "Shell Script" he meant a Node.js backend JavaScript. Possibly using commander.js to use frame your code :)

You could use the child_process module from node's API. I pasted the example code below.

var exec = require('child_process').exec;

exec('cat *.js bad_file | wc -l',
    function (error, stdout, stderr) {
        console.log('stdout: ' + stdout);
        console.log('stderr: ' + stderr);
        if (error !== null) {
             console.log('exec error: ' + error);
        }
    });

Hope this helps!

Solution 2:

I don't know why the previous answers gave all sorts of complicated solutions. If you just want to execute a quick command like ls, you don't need async/await or callbacks or anything. Here's all you need - execSync:

const execSync = require('child_process').execSync;
// import { execSync } from 'child_process';  // replace ^ if using ES modules

const output = execSync('ls', { encoding: 'utf-8' });  // the default is 'buffer'
console.log('Output was:\n', output);

For error handling, add a try/catch block around the statement.

If you're running a command that takes a long time to complete, then yes, look at the asynchronous exec function.