Doing a cleanup action just before Node.js exits

Question

I want to tell Node.js to always do something just before it exits, for whatever reason — Ctrl+C, an exception, or any other reason.

I tried th

Answer 1

async-exit-hook seems to be the most up-to-date solution for handling this problem. It's a forked/re-written version of exit-hook that supports async code before exiting.

Answer 2

In the case where the process was spawned by another node process, like:

var child = spawn('gulp', ['watch'], {
    stdio: 'inherit',
});

And you try to kill it later, via:

child.kill();

This is how you handle the event [on the child]:

process.on('SIGTERM', function() {
    console.log('Goodbye!');
});

Answer 3

Here's a nice hack for windows

process.on('exit', async () => {
    require('fs').writeFileSync('./tmp.js', 'crash', 'utf-8')
});

Answer 4

UPDATE:

You can register a handler for process.on('exit') and in any other case(SIGINT or unhandled exception) to call process.exit()

process.stdin.resume();//so the program will not close instantly

function exitHandler(options, exitCode) {
    if (options.cleanup) console.log('clean');
    if (exitCode || exitCode === 0) console.log(exitCode);
    if (options.exit) process.exit();
}

//do something when app is closing
process.on('exit', exitHandler.bind(null,{cleanup:true}));

//catches ctrl+c event
process.on('SIGINT', exitHandler.bind(null, {exit:true}));

// catches "kill pid" (for example: nodemon restart)
process.on('SIGUSR1', exitHandler.bind(null, {exit:true}));
process.on('SIGUSR2', exitHandler.bind(null, {exit:true}));

//catches uncaught exceptions
process.on('uncaughtException', exitHandler.bind(null, {exit:true}));

Answer 5

The script below allows having a single handler for all exit conditions. It uses an app specific callback function to perform custom cleanup code.

cleanup.js

// Object to capture process exits and call app specific cleanup function

function noOp() {};

exports.Cleanup = function Cleanup(callback) {

  // attach user callback to the process event emitter
  // if no callback, it will still exit gracefully on Ctrl-C
  callback = callback || noOp;
  process.on('cleanup',callback);

  // do app specific cleaning before exiting
  process.on('exit', function () {
    process.emit('cleanup');
  });

  // catch ctrl+c event and exit normally
  process.on('SIGINT', function () {
    console.log('Ctrl-C...');
    process.exit(2);
  });

  //catch uncaught exceptions, trace, then exit normally
  process.on('uncaughtException', function(e) {
    console.log('Uncaught Exception...');
    console.log(e.stack);
    process.exit(99);
  });
};

This code intercepts uncaught exceptions, Ctrl+C and normal exit events. It then calls a single optional user cleanup callback function before exiting, handling all exit conditions with a single object.

The module simply extends the process object instead of defining another event emitter. Without an app specific callback the cleanup defaults to a no op function. This was sufficient for my use where child processes were left running when exiting by Ctrl+C.

You can easily add other exit events such as SIGHUP as desired. Note: per NodeJS manual, SIGKILL cannot have a listener. The test code below demonstrates various ways of using cleanup.js

// test cleanup.js on version 0.10.21

// loads module and registers app specific cleanup callback...
var cleanup = require('./cleanup').Cleanup(myCleanup);
//var cleanup = require('./cleanup').Cleanup(); // will call noOp

// defines app specific callback...
function myCleanup() {
  console.log('App specific cleanup code...');
};

// All of the following code is only needed for test demo

// Prevents the program from closing instantly
process.stdin.resume();

// Emits an uncaught exception when called because module does not exist
function error() {
  console.log('error');
  var x = require('');
};

// Try each of the following one at a time:

// Uncomment the next line to test exiting on an uncaught exception
//setTimeout(error,2000);

// Uncomment the next line to test exiting normally
//setTimeout(function(){process.exit(3)}, 2000);

// Type Ctrl-C to test forced exit