In Node.js, the child_process
module provides the fork()
method, which allows you to create a new child process. It is a special case of the spawn()
method, which is used to create a new process. The fork()
method is similar to the spawn()
method, but it runs in a separate process and communicates with the parent process using inter-process communication (IPC).
Here is an example of using the fork()
method to create a new child process:
const { fork } = require('node:child_process');
const child = fork('child.js');
child.on('message', (message) => {
console.log(`Received message from child: ${message}`);
});
child.send('Hello from the parent!');
The child.js file would look like this:
process.on('message', (message) => {
console.log(`Received message from parent: ${message}`);
process.send('Hello from the child!');
});
The fork() method is useful for running multiple instances of an application or for running long-running processes in the background. It allows you to take advantage of multiple CPU cores by creating child processes that can run concurrently.