Best way to accept command line input synchronously in nodejs?

Question

What is the best way to simultaneously accept a number of command line inputs in nodejs?

how the program will output

Enter Value for variable one 

then the user enters a value, after which the second input should be requested on the command line, for example

 Enter Value for variable two 

etc.

Answer 1

The easiest way to do this, IMHO will show the "questions" to the user and is waiting for an answer. These questions can always be the same (a hint like "→") or, possibly, another (if you want, for example, to request some variables).

You can use stdio to show these questions. This is a module that simplifies standard I / O control, and one of its main functions is exactly what you want:

 var stdio = require('stdio'); stdio.question('What is your name?', function (err, name) { stdio.question('Are you male or female?', ['male', 'female'], function (err, sex) { console.log('Your name is "%s". You are "%s"', name, sex); }); }); 

If you run the previous code, you will see something like this:

 What is your name?: John Are you male or female? [male/female]: female Your name is "john". You are "female" 

stdio includes support for retries if you specify a group of possible answers. Otherwise, users will be able to write whatever they want.

PD: I'm the creator of stdio . stdio

Answer 2

Depending on your specific needs, you can create your own REPL.

http://nodejs.org/api/repl.html

Just call repl.start() with the parameters for prompt and use your own calls to eval and writer .

 repl.start({ prompt: 'Enter value: ', eval: function (cmd, context, filename, callback) { // Do something callback(/* return value goes here */); }, writer: function (data) { // echo out data to the console here } });