nodejs wait for exec in function

Question

I like to integrate exec from nodejs in a custom function to handle all the errors in this one function.

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

function os_func() {
    this.execCommand = function(cmd) {
        var ret;
        exec(cmd, (error, stdout, stderr) => {
            if (error) {
                console.error(`exec error: ${error}`);
                return;
            }
            ret = stdout;
        });
        return ret;
    }
}
var os = new os_func();

This function returns undefined because exec isn't finished when the value returns. How can i solve that? Can i force the function to wait for exec?

Answer 1

Since the command is executed asynchronously you will want to use a callback to handle the return value once the command has finished executing:

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

function os_func() {
    this.execCommand = function(cmd, callback) {
        exec(cmd, (error, stdout, stderr) => {
            if (error) {
                console.error(`exec error: ${error}`);
                return;
            }

            callback(stdout);
        });
    }
}
var os = new os_func();

os.execCommand('SomeCommand', function (returnvalue) {
    // Here you can get the return value
});