Glossary

Throughout this documentation these terms have specific meanings.

Blocking

ProcessRunner methods that return only once they have completed an activity (as opposed to Non-blocking). Refers to methods like wait() and readlines(), as well as attributes stdout, stderr, and output.

See Determining when to stop for more discussion.

Command

The external program (able to run in a command line shell) that is to be run in the first argument of ProcessRunner.

One-and-done

Commands that are expected to be run quickly and usually synchronously with the user’s application, where the user’s application waits for the command to complete before doing much other work.

Line

Lines

A newline-terminated string that represents the output of a command.

Long-running

Commands that will run asynchronously with the user’s application and are not expected to exit quickly.

Non-blocking

ProcessRunner methods that return immediately.

Reader

Readers

Generic term for a process that is consuming output from the command via a ProcessRunner instance. Outside ProcessRunner all readers will be consuming via a mechanism that leverages map(): map() directly, stdout, stderr, output, or readlines().