Spawning a child process that is accessible in global scope through use of eval()

Question

So basically my question is what would be a better way to achieve my goal? The code below works fine but looks like it is extremely inefficient and could be achieved in a better way. The code essentially spawns several child processes with a dynamic name and because the eval() function is in the global scope, the child processes are also available in global scope. I need to have the processes available in a global scope since I want to be able to kill each process individually through use of commands. I hope I have explained everything as clear as needed. If there are any questions, feel free to ask. Thanks.

processName = "child";
for (let a = 0; a < deviceAmount; a++) {
  eval(
    `
          var ${processName + a} = child_process.spawn("node", ["slave.js", ${a + 1}]);
      
          ${processName + a}.stdout.setEncoding("utf8");
          ${processName + a}.stdout.on("data", function (data) {
            process.stdout.write(data);
          });
          
          ${processName + a}.stderr.setEncoding("utf8");
          ${processName + a}.stderr.on("data", function (data) {
            process.stderr.write("ERROR: " + data);
          });
          
          ${processName + a}.on("close", function (code) {
            process.stdout.write("Exited with code: " + code);
          });
          `
  );
}

Answer 1

Unless there's some reason the child processes need to have their own names in the global scope, the easier and safer solution would seem to be having a global array which the child processes are kept in. Something kind of like this:

// At the top level
var children = [];

// Possibly elsewhere
for (let a = 0; a < deviceAmount; a++) {
    let child = child_process.spawn("node", ["slave.js", a + 1]);

    child.stdout.setEncoding("utf8");
    child.stdout.on("data", function (data) {
        process.stdout.write(data);
    });
          
    child.stderr.setEncoding("utf8");
    child.stderr.on("data", function (data) {
        process.stderr.write("ERROR: " + data);
    });
          
    child.on("close", function (code) {
        process.stdout.write("Exited with code: " + code);
    });

    children.push(child);
}