process.binding deprecation

[demurgos]

Node started to deprecate process.binding: https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v11.x/docs/api/deprecations.html#deprecations_dep0111_process_binding

This function is used by spawn-wrap to patch spawnSync.

It is possible to avoid patching the internals at the top level by creating a wrapped spawn function. The main issue is caused by processes deep in the process tree: spawn-wrap tries to hook into user-code spawning processes and we cannot change it so we still have to patch the internals.

There is an open Node issue discussing the issue: nodejs/node#27344

/cc @isaacs @bcoe @coreyfarrell

[demurgos]

I've thought about this problem and I think it's possible to avoid relying on process.binding.
There are 3 points were you can act:

• Overwrite the internal Node bindings (current solution for spawnSync)
• Overwrite the functions exported by the child_process module (≃ current solution for spawn)
• Do not overwrite any functions but return a new one (requires changes in user code: does not work here)

I think that it is possible to lift the current spawnSync patch to overwrite the child_process functions instead of the process bindings. Instead of patching a single point, we'd have to patch all the child_process sync functions (execFileSync, execSync and spawnSync) but it should be doable.

What's interesting is that the 2 highest levels can be implemented together. Instead of returning the wrapper function to the user, set it on the child_process exports.