shelljs/shelljs
Shelljs
ShellJS is a Node.js shell command library that provides a portable Unix-like utility suite for cross-platform system automation. It serves as a cross-platform filesystem API and a process wrapper for spawning and controlling external system subprocesses.
The project translates Unix shell commands into equivalent operations for the host operating system, allowing scripts to run consistently across different platforms. It supports the registration of custom commands and the integration of third-party plugins to extend its portable shell capabilities.
The library covers broad capability areas including filesystem management, where it handles file and directory operations, metadata inspection, and in-place text modification. It also provides tools for external process execution, command piping, and text stream processing using regular expressions.
Features
- System Automation Libraries - Implements a portable shell-like syntax for automating system tasks and file operations within Node.js.
- Portable Unix Utilities - Provides a portable Unix-like utility suite for executing system-level tasks across different operating systems.
- Command Piping - Allows passing the output of one command as the input to another in a sequence to process data incrementally.
- Cross-Platform Filesystem APIs - Offers a set of filesystem tools that ensure consistent file and directory management across different operating systems.
- Filesystem Management Tools - Provides a set of commands for standard filesystem operations like copying, moving, and deleting files across platforms.
- Portable Unix Utility Suites - Provides portable implementations of common Unix utilities for text manipulation and system tasks.
- Shell Command Execution - Triggers and controls operating system shell commands while capturing output and exit codes.
- Shell Scripting Utilities - Enables writing Node.js scripts that run Unix shell commands consistently across different operating systems.
- Subprocess Management - Provides utilities for spawning and controlling external system processes to run specific commands.
- Process Execution Wrappers - Wraps external system command execution to provide control over synchronous and asynchronous subprocess lifecycles.
- Standard Stream Piping - Connects the standard output of one subprocess to the standard input of another using Node.js streams.
- External Process Management - Running and managing external system commands from Node.js while capturing output and controlling execution flow.
- Filesystem and Text Processing - Provides utilities for manipulating text streams through filtering, sorting, and shell-style piping.
- Filesystem Operations - Provides low-level operations for managing files and directories, including copying, moving, and removing.
- Process Lifecycle Wrapping - Executes system commands by wrapping native Node.js spawn and exec functions to manage external process lifecycles.
- Shell Command Libraries - Provides a collection of portable Unix shell commands implemented natively in Node.js.
- Command Mapping - Translates Unix-style shell commands into equivalent operations for the host operating system to ensure script portability.
- Text Manipulation - Provides tools for transforming, encoding, and formatting text via line-based replacements.
- Regex-Based File Search - Enables searching through files using regular expressions to filter and extract specific text data.
- Global Command Registration - Allows adding custom commands to the environment by registering functions as callable system-wide utilities.
- CLI Process Controls - Provides runtime control over external system commands, including timeouts, buffers, and environment variables.
- Path Type Evaluators - Evaluates whether a path exists and identifies its type as a directory, regular file, or symbolic link.
- In-Place File Mutators - Performs search-and-replace operations that modify source files directly on disk.
- Line-Based Text Filters - Provides capabilities to extract, sort, and filter text from files using regular expressions and line-based limits.
- Output Redirection - Includes operators for routing the output of commands directly to files or appending them.
- Regular Expressions - Provides text processing and file content manipulation using JavaScript regular expression patterns.
- Synchronous Execution Controls - Blocks the JavaScript event loop during command execution to mimic sequential shell script behavior.
- Filesystem Metadata Retrievers - Queries operating system primitives to retrieve file properties such as existence, size, and permissions.
- Command Registries - Implements a system for mapping shell commands to executable JavaScript functions to decouple triggers from logic.
- Third-Party Plugins - Supports integrating third-party plugins to add new custom commands and portable shell capabilities.
- Shell and Scripting - Cross-platform Unix shell commands.
- Shell and Execution - Portable Unix shell commands for Node.js.
