Fetch a Windows process tree fast
npm install @tabby-gang/windows-process-tree
A Node.js library that enables quickly fetching process tree information for a particular process ID on Windows.
``ts
import * as child_process from 'child_process';
import { getProcessTree } from '@vscode/windows-process-tree';
if (process.platform === 'win32') {
child_process.spawn('cmd.exe');
getProcessTree(process.pid, (tree) => {
console.log(tree);
});
// { pid: 11168,
// name: 'node.exe',
// children:
// [ { pid: 1472, name: 'cmd.exe', children:[] },
getProcessTree(0, (tree) => {
console.log(tree);
});
// undefined
}
`
For the full API look at the typings file.
The current convention is to run wmic.exe to query a particular process ID and then parse the output like so:
`js
let cp = require('child_process');
function getChildProcessDetails(pid, cb) {
let args = ['process', 'where', parentProcessId=${pid}, 'get', 'ExecutablePath,ProcessId'];``
cp.execFile('wmic.exe', args, (err, stdout, stderr) => {
if (err) {
throw new Error(err);
}
if (stderr.length > 0) {
cb([]);
}
var childProcessLines = stdout.split('\n').slice(1).filter(str => !/^\s*$/.test(str));
var childProcessDetails = childProcessLines.map(str => {
var s = str.split(' ');
return { executable: s[0], pid: Number(s[1]) };
});
cb(childProcessDetails);
});
}
This has two problems:
1. It takes > 100ms\* to spin up a process and get the output returned.
2. It only goes one level deep. Meaning, if the process tree is deeply nested or processes in the tree have many children it will take a lot more time and need a bunch of processes launched.
Both of which are only exacerbated by the fact that this information is something that a consumer may want to poll for.
The native node module uses Windows APIs to get the process details and then they are organized into a tree, getting the entire tree's details in < 20ms\*.
\* On my machine :slightly_smiling_face:
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