Getting child_process.fork() to work in electron when compiled and minified

Question

So basically I am building an electron app. I have reached an interesting problem I have been trying to figure out for a few hours now. There is part of the app that needs to be a forked process(child_process.fork()) which is relative to the source directory.

Like this:

 - app - main-process - core - manager - index.js - fork.js - some-module.js - main.js 

webpack compiles the source code into one file/bundle(the main.js file), along with electron-builder compiling in app.asar .

The issue I'm having is how to use child_process.fork() in a relative directory that is requiring modules from the forked process when the app is compiled & minified. Those modules required, when compiled are now in the main.js file minfied thus the refence is lost in the fork.js making "some-module" not be found.

 // app/main-process/core/manager/index.js const child_process = require('child_process'); let child = child_process.fork('./fork.js'); child.send('start'); // app/main-process/core/manager/fork.js const someModule = require('./some-module'); someModule(()=>{ ... }) 

When compiled, webpack automatically resolves these require paths into references in the bundle but since child_process.fork() requires a file, it would make sense that this would not work.

The webpack config is fairly straitforwards config. Its not a complex app yet. This is a multi-webpack config but im just showing the main process config.

 const backend = { entry:path.resolve(__dirname, '../app/main.js'), devtool:false, target:'node', output: { filename: 'main-compiled.js', sourceMapFilename: 'main-compiled.js.map', }, node:{ fs:'empty', http:'empty', crypto:'empty', electorn:'empty', __dirname:true, __filename:true, }, module:{ loaders:[ { test:/\\.json$/, use:[ {loader:'json-loader'}, ] } ] }, plugins:[ new webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin({ sourceMap:true, parallel: true, compress:{ warnings:false, drop_console:true } }) ], externals:[ nodeExternals(), ] }; 

I have already figured out that with webpack i can exclude this fork.js file from being included in the bundle and with electron-builder, keep the directory structor by using the files array in the config.

Answer 1

I figured it out. I was overcomplicating the thought process. The kind of behavior can be achieved by using the cluster master/worker pattern and just using the main.js file to coordinate what logic is executed via command arguments when spawned as a "child"(fork).