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erlang_v8

Run JavaScript from Erlang in an external OS process.

This is an experiment to see if embedding v8 in an actual OS process is more predictable than using a port driver or NIF. I will give the project proper attention if the experiment works out.

The most notable features:

  • You can eval/3 things like "while (true) {}" with a timeout and have the v8 VM actually terminate when it times out.
  • Multiple separate contexts per VM. This is useful when you want multiple parties to share the same VM(s).
  • A VM can be initialized with pre-defined source that's loaded into the OS process and available in all contexts.

I'm also planning two-way communication (i.e. passing messages back to the controlling process from JS) and a few other things.

Building

Subversion, pkg-config, libtinfo and Python 2.6-2.7 (needed by GYP) are required to build v8.

Build using make:

make

GYP is not compatible with Python3. If python3 is the default, you can symlink python2 to ~/bin and set your path temporarily before compiling:

ln -s /usr/bin/python2 ~/bin/python
PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH make

Tests

You can run a few tests to verify basic functionality:

make test

Usage

Start a VM:

{ok, VM} = erlang_v8:start_vm().

Create a context:

{ok, Context} = erlang_v8:create_context(VM).

Define a function:

{ok, undefined} =
    erlang_v8:eval(VM, Context, <<"function sum(a, b) { return a + b }">>).

Call the function:

{ok, 2} = erlang_v8:call(VM, Context, <<"sum">>, [1, 1]).

Destroy the Context:

erlang_v8:destroy_context(VM, Context).

Stop the VM:

ok = erlang_v8:stop_vm(VM).

VMs can be initialized with code that is automatically available in all contexts:

{ok, VM} = erlang_v8:start_vm([{source, <<"var x = 1;">>}]).
{ok, Context1} = erlang_v8:create_context(VM).

{ok, 1} = erlang_v8:eval(VM, Context1, <<"x;">>).
{ok, 2} = erlang_v8:eval(VM, Context1, <<"x = 2;">>).
{ok, 2} = erlang_v8:eval(VM, Context1, <<"x;">>).

{ok, Context2} = erlang_v8:create_context(VM).
{ok, 1} = erlang_v8:eval(VM, Context2, <<"x;">>).

erlang_v8:destroy_context(VM, Context1).
erlang_v8:destroy_context(VM, Context2).

ok = erlang_v8:stop_vm(VM).

You can also initialize the VMs using paths to source files:

{ok, VM} = erlang_v8:start_vm([{file, "a.js"}, {file, "b.js"}]).

Set a custom timeout (defaults to 5000):

{error, timeout} =  erlang_v8:eval(VM, Context, <<"while (true) {}">>, 500).

Pooling

You might want to use some kind of pooling mechanism as the VMs are real OS processes. I've had much success using devinus/poolboy for this purpose in the past (I considered including the application, but decided against it as it might not always be desirable to have a pool. Besides, poolboy is easy to set up).

I'm also working on strange/erlang-v8-lib, a little framework that, among other things, implements a pool.

TODO

  • Use custom protocol to support more data types (binary, dates etc
  • Refactor the API
  • Experiment with calling Erlang from v8 synchronously
  • Build on OS X again