How do I determine the current operating system with Node.js

With Node.js v6 (and above) there is a dedicated os module, which provides a number of operating system-related utility methods.

On my Windows 10 machine it reports the following:

var os = require('os');

console.log(os.type()); // "Windows_NT"
console.log(os.release()); // "10.0.14393"
console.log(os.platform()); // "win32"

You can read it's full documentation here: https://nodejs.org/api/os.html#os_os_type


You are looking for the OS native module for Node.js:

v4: https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v4.x/docs/api/os.html#os_os_platform

or v5 : https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v5.x/docs/api/os.html#os_os_platform

os.platform()

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


The variable to use would be process.platform

On Mac the variable is set to darwin. On Windows, it is set to win32 (even on 64 bit).

Current possible values are:

  • aix
  • darwin
  • freebsd
  • linux
  • openbsd
  • sunos
  • win32
  • android (Experimental, according to the link)

I just set this at the top of my jakeFile:

var isWin = process.platform === "win32";

Process

var opsys = process.platform;
if (opsys == "darwin") {
    opsys = "MacOS";
} else if (opsys == "win32" || opsys == "win64") {
    opsys = "Windows";
} else if (opsys == "linux") {
    opsys = "Linux";
}
console.log(opsys) // I don't know what linux is.

OS

const os = require("os"); // Comes with node.js
console.log(os.type());

Tags:

Node.Js