node.js: How to spawn detached child in foreground and exit - node.js

Question

According to the docs for child_process.spawn I would expect to be able to run a child process in the foreground and allow the node process itself to exit like so:
handoff-exec.js:
'use strict';
var spawn = require('child_process').spawn;
// this console.log before the spawn seems to cause
// the child to exit immediately, but putting it
// afterwards seems to not affect it.
//console.log('hello');
var child = spawn(
'ping'
, [ '-c', '3', 'google.com' ]
, { detached: true, stdio: 'inherit' }
);
child.unref();
Instead of seeing the output of the ping command, it simply exits without any message or error.
node handoff-exec.js
hello
echo $?
0
So... is it possible in node.js (or at all) to run a child in the foreground as the parent exits?
Buggy Node Versions
I found that removing console.log('hello'); allows the child to run, however, it still doesn't pass foreground stdin control to the child. That's obviously not intended, therefore something must be buggy in the version of node I was using at the time...
https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/5549

Answer 1

Solution
The code in the question was actually correct. There was a legitimate bug in node at the time.
'use strict';
var spawn = require('child_process').spawn;
console.log("Node says hello. Let's see what ping has to say...");
var child = spawn(
'ping'
, [ '-c', '3', 'google.com' ]
, { detached: true, stdio: 'inherit' }
);
child.unref();
The snippet above will run effectively the same as if it had been backgrounded by the shell:
ping -c 3 google.com &

Answer 2

You are missing
// Listen for any response:
child.stdout.on('data', function (data) {
console.log(data.toString());
});
// Listen for any errors:
child.stderr.on('data', function (data) {
console.log(data.toString());
});
and you don't need the child.unref();