What's the difference between process and shell in vscode tasks.json

Question

The Custom tasks section of the Tasks in Visual Studio Code describe the task's properties. There is a type property that define task's type:

type: The task's type. For a custom task, this can either be shell or process. If shell is specified, the command is interpreted as a shell command (for example: bash, cmd, or PowerShell). If process is specified, the command is interpreted as a process to execute.

I couldn't understand what's the different between them. No matter I choose shell or process, all the execute results are all the same.

So what's the different between interpreted as a shell command and command is interpreted as a process to execute really mean?

Answer 1

The shell commands can only run inside a shell such as DIR for cmd and if for bash. So when you want to run shell commands, you have to use "type": "shell" setting to run it correctly. When you want to just run a program such as .bat, .sh or .exe, then you can just use "type": "process" setting.

• Aminadav Glickshtein: You're a real hero.
• Razze: So I should be defaulting to process? Does it spawn a cmd too or am I saving that time? What's the benefit of process is what I'm asking I guess.
• Razze: That does not really answer what the pro/con arguments are
• plwalsh88: I agree with @Razze that the pro/con arguments are still not answered. What's the benefit of using the "process" type when executing a program when I could just as easily use the "shell" type for calling said program? They offer the "process" type for some reason, but what is it? What do I gain by switching to "process" for a single program command? I can't find that answer in the docs.
• plwalsh88: @WillHuang, well yes. If I want to use any additional logic in the commands, aside from the program name, I would need to use the "shell" type. But again, I could still just use the "shell" type for the program name, and as far as I know, the result will be the same as using the "process" type. So that still doesn't answer the question of "why should I ever choose the 'process' type?"

Answer 2

I think the difference is as follows:

• process: runs a specific program (a binary)
• shell: starts a shell session and runs the given command inside of that shell session

If the command you give to a shell is just (the path to) a program, for example date, the result will be exactly the same.

{
 "version": "2.0.0",
 "tasks": [
 {
 "label": "example1",
 "type": "process",
 "command": "date",
 "presentation": {
 "reveal": "always"
 },
 "problemMatcher": []
 },
 {
 "label": "example2",
 "type": "shell",
 "command": "date",
 "presentation": {
 "reveal": "always"
 },
 "problemMatcher": []
 }
 ]
}

The task that uses process will probably be a little faster because it does not start a shell session.

But because a shell type task creates a shell session it can use any command you can type on the command line. So let's say the task we want to run is date -u +"%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ", we can do this with a shell task, but not with a process task.

Example:

{
 "version": "2.0.0",
 "tasks": [
 {
 "label": "example1",
 "type": "process",
 "command": "date",
 "presentation": {
 "reveal": "always"
 },
 "problemMatcher": []
 },
 {
 "label": "example2",
 "type": "shell",
 "command": "date -u +\"%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ\"",
 "presentation": {
 "reveal": "always"
 },
 "problemMatcher": []
 }
 ]
}

So, as always, it depends on what you need or want. Personally I think tasks of type shell are useful way more often.

---

One extra thing: a task definition can also have a "args" key where you can send arguments. That may allow you to send arguments if you need to use process. I did not investigate that to answer this question.

Another relevant page of docs.

Answer 3

well, I recently troubled by a problem, and I finally done it by changing the type from "process" to "shell" and I think this might help you: I'm trying to run more than one .cpp files, and I used a wildcard in the args:"${fileDirname}/.cpp". When the type was process, I cannot run the project successfully, as it always tell me: "*.cpp":no such file or directory and when I change to "shell" it goes well. This might be one of the differences between "process" and "shell".