erlang_v8

Run JavaScript from Erlang in an external OS process.

This is just 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 feature is that you can eval things like "while (true) {}" and have the v8 VM actually terminate when it times out. I'm also planning two-way communication, resetting context etc.

Building

Git, Subversion, and Python 2.6-2.7 (for GYP) are required to build v8.

Build using make:

make

Or with rebar:

rebar get-deps
rebar compile

Tests

You can run a few tests to verify basic functionality:

make test

Usage

Start a VM:

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

Define a function:

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

Run the function:

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

Stop the VM:

ok = erlang_v8:stop_vm(VM).

TODO

Lots of testing, improve the communication protocol, clean up api, add features like reset context and stuff, experiment with calling Erlang from JS, load initial context from args, supervisor strategy, experiment with different ways of passing args to calls (maybe via the communication protocol) etc.