Nw.js: process.stdin cannot be used

[dacap]

I'm trying to create a window that can receive input (messages) from stdin, but when I use process.stdin (or process.openStdin()) I receive the following error:

Error: Implement me. Unknown stdin file type!

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[techtonik]

Ran into this.

[asarudick]

Ran into this as well.

[Mithgol]

Is it even possible to make such a feature so that it works across platforms? It has always seemed to me that a GUI window cannot receive anything from stdin on Windows.

[calebolin]

+1

[vasanthps]

+1

[jr-k]

+1

[spelufo]

I have written a module that wraps the process object replacing the standard streams with tcp streams so you can use them. nw-wrap

[drown-zed]

Was there any resolution for this?

[apoco]

+1. I may be encountering this. I don't get that original error, but process.stdin doesn't seem to receive stdin. For example, when running:

echo 'Hello' | nw .

...stdin just gets an end event. Sample reading code that just outputs EOF:

  const { stdin, stdout } = process;

  stdin.resume();
  stdin.setEncoding('utf8');
  stdin
    .on('data', str => {
      stdout.write('Got ' + str);
    })
    .on('end', () => {
      stdout.write('EOF');
    });

[dev-mraj]

+1

[xtecox]

+1

[adibas03]

+1

[derrickb]

+1

Any word from the team on this? It's been open for a long time.

[chlp]

We can try to bypass using https://www.npmjs.com/package/nwjs-j5-fix

[djipco]

We can try to bypass using https://www.npmjs.com/package/nwjs-j5-fix

I created that package but I really wish I could stop using it. Can we hope for this issue to be bumped up the priority list anytime soon @rogerwang ?

[Christywl]

Can reproduce this issue on nwjs v0.26.6.

[derrickb]

Can reproduce on 0.27.1 on Mac, and what's worse, @cotejp's fix does not appear to work so there aren't any viable options I can find without looking at other methods for communicating with the app.

[djipco]

and what's worse, @cotejp's fix does not appear to work

Your use case might be different from mine, but my little fix (nwjs-j5-fix) is still working for me in version 0.27.1.

[derrickb]

Your use case might be different from mine, but my little fix (nwjs-j5-fix) is still working for me in version 0.27.1.

Ah interesting. Well I'm glad to know that it should still be working. Would you mind posting a small snippet showing the most minimal amount of code necessary to test the fix? Do you use the readline module? What I've been trying, just to see if I can get any input at all:

nw.require('nwjs-j5-fix').fix();
var readline = nw.require('readline');
var rl = readline.createInterface({
  input: process.stdin,
  output: process.stdout,
  terminal: false
});
rl.on('line', function (line) {
  alert(line);
});

My use case is I'm launching nwjs from an Adobe AIR project (probably not a typical use case, but alas...), as a NativeProcess, and am writing to the process's stdin like so:
process.standardInput.writeUTF("hello")

But haven't been able to get any indication that the input as received. I can retrieve the stdout from this process just fine. Immediately after launching the process, I do get a "standard error data" event but am not sure what exactly is triggering that.

I've also attempted launching it from another node app using child_process.spawn, but that doesn't seem to work for me either.

[djipco]

The nwjs-j5-fix module fixes the issue of NW.js and Johnny-Five not being able to communicate. It does that successfully so I have not tested it under other scenarios.

You can look at the source code if you wnat to know more. As you'll see, it is very simple. I did not even bother with stdout because it is not needed in my scenario.

Cheers!

[derrickb]

@rogerwang Is there any hope of progress on this for macOS? I have a product that would benefit hugely from having this fixed, it's the only thing keeping me from switching to nw.js

[rogerwang]

@derrickb yes, will look into it. I believe the issue is mostly for Windows.

[derrickb]

@rogerwang thanks Roger! I've done extensive testing and unfortunately experienced the issue on Mac as well... tested with several nw.js versions last year, and again earlier this year.

[derrickb]

Appears related: #3299

[porsager]

This also happens on macos at least, so https://github.com/djipco/nwjs-j5-fix is still required :-/

Is it a won't-fix @rogerwang ?

[derrickb]

This also happens on macos at least, so https://github.com/djipco/nwjs-j5-fix is still required :-/

Is it a won't-fix @rogerwang ?

When I tried nwjs-j5-fix on macOS, I still couldn't get stdin working. Were you able to?

[djipco]

@derrickb I'm using it on macOS Mojave with no issues.