fork-acknowledge

Get acknowledgements back from messages sent to forked processes

Install

npm i fork-acknowledge

Usage

• parent

  const { fork } = require('child_process')
  const fack = require('fork-acknowledge')
  
  const child = fork(...);
  const { send } = fack(child);
  
  const result = await send('message');
          └────────────────────────────────────────┐

• child

  const fack = require('fork-acknowledge')         │
                                                   │
  const { on } = fack(process);                    │
                                                   │
  on(async message => {                            │
    return 'result' ───────────────────────────────┘
  });

API

const {send, on} = fack(process)

• process [process] - process, or a (forked) child_process used to send, or on which to listen for, messages.

• send [function] - Function to send messages to process

  const promise = send(...args)

  • promise [promise] - Resolves (or rejects) when the corresponding¹ on method on the process returns (or throws).
  • promise.off [function] - Special function attached to the promise, to remove the process.on() event listener created by send, which otherwise is automatically removed upon the promise's resolution/rejection.
  • args [array] - Message arguments to be sent.

• on [function] - Function to receive messages from process

  const off = on(fn)

  • off [function] - Function to remove the event listener after which fn will no longer be called.
  • fn [function] - Function that gets called when a message is received. It's the return value (or error in case it throws) of this function that's used to resolve or reject the corresponding¹ promise. Correspondence is maintained by sending/receiving a unique id (generated using crypto).