Incorrect documentation for child_process

[thw0rted]

• Version: all
• Platform: all
• Subsystem: child_process

I recently put in a PR over on DefinitelyTyped based on the child_process docs, and another user pointed out that the documented options are missing a legal value. The stdio section of the child_process docs lists "inherit" as a valid (shorthand) string argument, but it does not appear in the numbered list under the array argument description.

At first, I thought "inherit" and null/undefined were equivalent, but then I dug around in the relevant code and it behaves differently from any other value. Under the hood, the transformed object (having type = "inherit") is passed through to the native implementation as is, and I'm not sure where to find the source for that (in v8, I guess?), so the trail sort of went cold for me. If anybody can explain what "inherit" (in an array value, not as shorthand) actually does, I can put in the PR, or you could just file the PR directly.

[vsemozhetbyt]

cc @nodejs/child_process

[gireeshpunathil]

@thw0rted - from JS land, it reaches to uv_spawn of libuv through this route, with the options encoded in uv_process_options_t

  * frame #0: 0x00000001009577fa node`uv_spawn
    frame #1: 0x00000001000ae5a7 node`node::(anonymous namespace)::ProcessWrap::Spawn(v8::FunctionCallbackInfo<v8::Value> const&) + 2445
    frame #2: 0x000000010022822f node`v8::internal::FunctionCallbackArguments::Call(v8::internal::CallHandlerInfo*) + 623
    frame #3: 0x0000000100227771 node`v8::internal::MaybeHandle<v8::internal::Object> v8::internal::(anonymous namespace)::HandleApiCallHelper<false>(v8::internal::Isolate*, v8::internal::Handle<v8::internal::HeapObject>, v8::internal::Handle<v8::internal::HeapObject>, v8::internal::Handle<v8::internal::FunctionTemplateInfo>, v8::internal::Handle<v8::internal::Object>, v8::internal::BuiltinArguments) + 689
    frame #4: 0x0000000100226dc0 node`v8::internal::Builtin_Impl_HandleApiCall(v8::internal::BuiltinArguments, v8::internal::Isolate*) + 288

even without digging into that method, you could actually fill the missing one in the numbered list by searching for inherit in the same document file as it its behavior is documented elsewhere.

Hope this helps. Expecting a doc PR from you soon!