grunt-daemon v0.1.1

grunt-daemon

Daemonize grunt tasks

Getting started

This plugin requires Grunt

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-daemon --save-dev

Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-daemon');

Daemonize task

This task is so simple that we can explain it by showing its code

function () {
  this.async();
}

this.async() tells grunt to run in async mode and returns a handle to a funcion to be called when an async task process has finished

var done = this.async();
setTimeout(function () {
  done();
}, 3000);

In the previous example, the async process is released after 3 seconds using the call to done()

Hence, the daemonize task sets grunt in async mode and never releases the process, making grunt waiting forever until the user stops the process with Ctrl+C

Usage

This task does not require any configuration. Just create a task grouping other tasks and put daemonize as the last task to give daemon powers to your task group.

For example, the grunt-contrib-connect stops listening requests after grunt tasks have finished, so its suitable for unit testing but cannot be used by the developer.

This behavior can be changed with its keepalive option, but that doesn't allow to get multiple servers listening.

To enable multiple servers listening forever we can create a task group with all connect targets and the daemonize task at the end.

// load required grunt plugins
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-connect');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-daemon');

// configure your connect targets
grunt.initConfig({

  // ...

  connect: {
    foo: {
      port: 3000
    },
    bar: {
      port: 4000
    }
  }

  // ...

});

// register the server task which daemonizes the connect targets
grunt.registerTask('server', ['connect', 'daemonize']);

Now, from the command-line you can launch the server task which will keep running forever ...

grunt server

Running "connect:foo" (connect) task

foo listening on port 3000

Running "connect:bar" (connect) task

bar listening on port 4000

Running "daemonize" task

(waiting forever ...)

Daemon task

The daemonize task is useful for hardcoded task groups, but what if we want to daemonize just some connect targets?

Do we need to create several task groups for several targets combination?

That is why we have created the daemon task

This task is aimed to be used from the command-line and receive as task arguments the task and 0 or more targets to be daemonized

Usage

This task does not require any configuration. Just load the task in your Gruntfile.js

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-daemon');

(Note that grunt-daemon register both daemonize and daemon tasks)

Then, from the command-line you can daemonize any task you want passing the task name as an argument to the daemon task

grunt daemon:connect

Running "connect:foo" (connect) task

foo listening on port 3000

Running "connect:bar" (connect) task

bar listening on port 4000

Running "daemonize" task

(waiting forever ...)

You can specify the task targets you want to use as further task arguments

grunt daemon:connect:foo

Running "connect:foo" (connect) task

foo listening on port 3000

Running "daemonize" task

(waiting forever ...)

How to: create an alias to a daemonized task

Say you want to create a grunt task wich acts like a daemonized task:

a server alias to daemon:connect which allows to daemonize all task targets

grunt server

or specify the targets to use (foo and qux in the example)

grunt server:foo:qux

For this kind of aliases you need to include a snippet like the following in your Gruntfile.js replacing the task name (server in the example) and the task to be used (connect in the example) based on your needs

grunt.registerTask('server', function () {
  grunt.task.run(['daemon', 'connect'].concat(this.args).join(':'));
});

In the previous example server will become an alias to daemon:connect

License

The MIT License (MIT)