programming-examples/go/spawning-processes/spawning-processes.go
2019-11-18 15:02:35 +01:00

74 lines
2.3 KiB
Go

// Sometimes our Go programs need to spawn other, non-Go
// processes. For example, the syntax highlighting on this
// site is [implemented](https://github.com/mmcgrana/gobyexample/blob/master/tools/generate.go)
// by spawning a [`pygmentize`](http://pygments.org/)
// process from a Go program. Let's look at a few examples
// of spawning processes from Go.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"io/ioutil"
"os/exec"
)
func main() {
// We'll start with a simple command that takes no
// arguments or input and just prints something to
// stdout. The `exec.Command` helper creates an object
// to represent this external process.
dateCmd := exec.Command("date")
// `.Output` is another helper that handles the common
// case of running a command, waiting for it to finish,
// and collecting its output. If there were no errors,
// `dateOut` will hold bytes with the date info.
dateOut, err := dateCmd.Output()
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
fmt.Println("> date")
fmt.Println(string(dateOut))
// Next we'll look at a slightly more involved case
// where we pipe data to the external process on its
// `stdin` and collect the results from its `stdout`.
grepCmd := exec.Command("grep", "hello")
// Here we explicitly grab input/output pipes, start
// the process, write some input to it, read the
// resulting output, and finally wait for the process
// to exit.
grepIn, _ := grepCmd.StdinPipe()
grepOut, _ := grepCmd.StdoutPipe()
grepCmd.Start()
grepIn.Write([]byte("hello grep\ngoodbye grep"))
grepIn.Close()
grepBytes, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(grepOut)
grepCmd.Wait()
// We ommited error checks in the above example, but
// you could use the usual `if err != nil` pattern for
// all of them. We also only collect the `StdoutPipe`
// results, but you could collect the `StderrPipe` in
// exactly the same way.
fmt.Println("> grep hello")
fmt.Println(string(grepBytes))
// Note that when spawning commands we need to
// provide an explicitly delineated command and
// argument array, vs. being able to just pass in one
// command-line string. If you want to spawn a full
// command with a string, you can use `bash`'s `-c`
// option:
lsCmd := exec.Command("bash", "-c", "ls -a -l -h")
lsOut, err := lsCmd.Output()
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
fmt.Println("> ls -a -l -h")
fmt.Println(string(lsOut))
}