- Qbs Manual
- Process Service
- Qt Build Suite 1.4.5

# Process Service

The `Process` service allows you to start processes, track their output, and so on.

## Available Operations

### Constructor

    Process()

Allocates and returns a new Process object.

### close

    close(): void

Frees the resources associated with the process. It is recommended to always call this function as soon as you are finished with the process.

### exec

    exec(filePath: string, arguments: string[], throwOnError: boolean): number

Executes the program at `filePath` with the given argument list and blocks until the process is finished. If an error occurs (for example, there is no executable file at `filePath`) and `throwOnError` is true, then a JavaScript exception will be thrown. Otherwise (the default), -1 will be returned in case of an error. The normal return code is the exit code of the process.

### exitCode

    exitCode(): number

Returns the exit code of the process. This is needed for retrieving the exit code from processes started via `start()`, rather than `exec()`.

### getEnv

    getEnv(varName: string): string

Returns the value of the variable `varName` in the process' environment.

### kill

    kill(): void

Kills the process, causing it to exit immediately.

### readLine

    readLine(): string

Reads and returns one line of text from the process output, without the newline character(s).

### readStdErr

    readStdErr(): string

Reads and returns all data from the process' standard error channel.

### readStdOut

    readStdOut(): string

Reads and returns all data from the process' standard output channel.

### setCodec

    setCodec(codec)

Sets the text codec to `codec`. The codec is used for reading and writing from and to the process, respectively. The supported codecs are the same as for `QTextCodec`, for example: "UTF-8", "UTF-16", and "ISO 8859-1".

### setEnv

    setEnv(varName: string, varValue: string): string

Sets the value of variable `varName` to `varValue` in the process environment. This only has an effect if called before the process is started.

### setWorkingDirectory

    setWorkingDirectory(path: string): void

Sets the directory the process will be started in. This only has an effect if called before the process is started.

### start

    start(filePath: string, arguments: string[]): boolean

Starts the program at `filePath` with the given list of arguments. Returns `true` if the process could be started and `false` otherwise.

Note: This call returns right after starting the process and should be used only if you need to interact with the process while it is running. Most of the time, you want to use `exec()` instead.

### terminate

    terminate(): void

Tries to terminate the process. This is not guaranteed to make the process exit immediately; if you need that, use `kill()`.

### waitForFinished

    waitForFinished(timeout: number): boolean

Blocks until the process has finished or `timeout` milliseconds have passed (default is 30000). Returns true if the process has finished and false if the operation has timed out. Calling this function only makes sense for processes started via `start()` (as opposed to `exec()`).

### workingDirectory

    workingDirectory(): string

Returns the directory the process will be started in.

### write

    write(data: string): void

Writes `data` into the process' input channel.

### writeLine

    writeLine(data: string): void

Writes `data`, followed by the newline character(s), into the process' input channel.