Grunt tasks for pid file management

This plugin requires Grunt ~0.4.2

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-pid-file --save-dev

Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-pid-file');

In your project's Gruntfile, add a section named pidFile to the data object passed into grunt.initConfig().

grunt.initConfig({
  pidFile: {
    options: {
      // Task-specific options go here.
    },
    your_target: {
      // Target-specific file lists and/or options go here.
    },
  },
});

Type: String Default value: .tmp/pid-file.pid'

A file path that is created when the the task pidFile is ran and deleted when the grunt process exists.

Type: Boolean Default value: false

If this value is false, and the pid file already exists when the task is ran, the pid file will be updated with the new pid. The previous process ID, if running or stopped, is ignored. If this value is ture, and the pid file already exists when the task is ran, the process ID in the pid file is read, and then killed with process.kill(pid);. Then the pid file is updated with the current grunt process.

In this example, running the pidFile task will create a pid file, and delete it when the process exits. If a long running process, such as grunt pidFile server is running, running grunt pidFile server again will leave the current server running and try to start a new one. The pid file will be updated with the new process id.

grunt.initConfig({
  pidFile: {
    options: {},
    // Defaults to 
    // file: './tmp/pid-file.pid'
    // killIfRunning : false
  },
});

A common use case for grunt-pid-file will be to start a grunt server, and kill it later. Another use case is to start a grunt server, and upon start, kill any previously running grunt servers, and then start a new one.

For example, you start a grunt server with grunt pidFile server which will run the grunt tasks pidFile (which will create the pid file) and then server (which starts a web server and runs forever/untill killed). Then some time later you start a second grunt process grunt pidFile server. This will kill the first server, and start a new one.

Another example, you start a grunt server with grunt pidFile server, which will run forever. Running simply grunt pidFile will kill the server.

grunt.initConfig({
  pidFile: {
    options: {
      killIfRunning : true,
    },
    myTask : {
      file : '.tmp/grunt-server.pid',
    },
  },
});

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