How do I call out to a command-line program from a gnome shell extension?

Question

I have written a simple shell script to accomplish a common task, and I want to be able to run it whenever a button is clicked. I've used gnome-shell-extension-tool to create the Hello World example already, but now I need to know how to simply have it run an arbitrary command when clicked. There is no input or output to be concerned with; it just needs to run.

Answer 1

After some more creative googling, I've found the solution:

const Util = imports.misc.util;
Util.spawn(['/path/to/program', 'arg1', 'arg2'])

Answer 2

const GLib = imports.gi.GLib;
let stuff = GLib.spawn_command_line_sync("cat hello.txt")[1].toString();

For those looking to read the output of the command, use this. The default working directory for Gnome shell extensions is the user's home directory.

Just thought I'd mention these things, because it took me a while to figure them out.