node/doc/api/os.markdown
Benjamin Gruenbaum f83d380647 doc: update os.markdown
Some doc update based on improvement ideas I remember from when I used this module in node:

 - Mention windows returns 0 for `nice` values (which is obvious, but io makes no attempt to calculate something similar or return undefined, 0 is returned)
 - Mention platform and arch are aliases for `process` properties.
 - Document possible return values where appropriate, add examples in others.
 - Rename title in order to match other titles in the navigation.
 - Fix line that was over 80 characters long.

PR-URL: https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/976
Reviewed-By: Christian Tellnes <christian@tellnes.no>
Reviewed-By: Brian White <mscdex@mscdex.net>
Reviewed-By: Vladimir Kurchatkin <vladimir.kurchatkin@gmail.com>
2015-02-27 15:22:38 +01:00

4.7 KiB

OS

Stability: 4 - API Frozen

Provides a few basic operating-system related utility functions.

Use require('os') to access this module.

os.tmpdir()

Returns the operating system's default directory for temporary files.

os.endianness()

Returns the endianness of the CPU. Possible values are 'BE' for big endian or 'LE' for little endian.

os.hostname()

Returns the hostname of the operating system.

os.type()

Returns the operating system name. For example 'Linux' on Linux, 'Darwin' on OS X and 'Windows_NT' on Windows.

os.platform()

Returns the operating system platform. Possible values are 'darwin', 'freebsd', 'linux', 'sunos' or 'win32'. Returns the value of process.platform.

os.arch()

Returns the operating system CPU architecture. Possible values are 'x64', 'arm' and 'ia32'. Returns the value of process.arch.

os.release()

Returns the operating system release.

os.uptime()

Returns the system uptime in seconds.

os.loadavg()

Returns an array containing the 1, 5, and 15 minute load averages.

The load average is a measure of system activity, calculated by the operating system and expressed as a fractional number. As a rule of thumb, the load average should ideally be less than the number of logical CPUs in the system.

The load average is a very UNIX-y concept; there is no real equivalent on Windows platforms. That is why this function always returns [0, 0, 0] on Windows.

os.totalmem()

Returns the total amount of system memory in bytes.

os.freemem()

Returns the amount of free system memory in bytes.

os.cpus()

Returns an array of objects containing information about each CPU/core installed: model, speed (in MHz), and times (an object containing the number of milliseconds the CPU/core spent in: user, nice, sys, idle, and irq).

Example inspection of os.cpus:

[ { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 252020,
       nice: 0,
       sys: 30340,
       idle: 1070356870,
       irq: 0 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 306960,
       nice: 0,
       sys: 26980,
       idle: 1071569080,
       irq: 0 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 248450,
       nice: 0,
       sys: 21750,
       idle: 1070919370,
       irq: 0 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 256880,
       nice: 0,
       sys: 19430,
       idle: 1070905480,
       irq: 20 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 511580,
       nice: 20,
       sys: 40900,
       idle: 1070842510,
       irq: 0 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 291660,
       nice: 0,
       sys: 34360,
       idle: 1070888000,
       irq: 10 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 308260,
       nice: 0,
       sys: 55410,
       idle: 1071129970,
       irq: 880 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 266450,
       nice: 1480,
       sys: 34920,
       idle: 1072572010,
       irq: 30 } } ]

Note that since nice values are UNIX centric in Windows the nice values of all processors are always 0.

os.networkInterfaces()

Get a list of network interfaces:

{ lo:
   [ { address: '127.0.0.1',
       netmask: '255.0.0.0',
       family: 'IPv4',
       mac: '00:00:00:00:00:00',
       internal: true },
     { address: '::1',
       netmask: 'ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff',
       family: 'IPv6',
       mac: '00:00:00:00:00:00',
       internal: true } ],
  eth0:
   [ { address: '192.168.1.108',
       netmask: '255.255.255.0',
       family: 'IPv4',
       mac: '01:02:03:0a:0b:0c',
       internal: false },
     { address: 'fe80::a00:27ff:fe4e:66a1',
       netmask: 'ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff::',
       family: 'IPv6',
       mac: '01:02:03:0a:0b:0c',
       internal: false } ] }

Note that due to the underlying implementation this will only return network interfaces that have been assigned an address.

os.EOL

A constant defining the appropriate End-of-line marker for the operating system.