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 features:

• You can eval/3 things like "while (true) {}" with a timeout and have the v8 VM actually terminate when it times out (the OS process is killed and restarted).
• The context of the VM can then be reset (the current implementation is pretty naive; I'm working on a more elegant solution). 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 automatically evaluated when the VM is reset or restarted.

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, and Python 2.6-2.7 (required by 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 tests

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 }">>).

Call the function:

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

You can reset the VM:

ok = erlang_v8:reset_vm(VM).
{error, <<"ReferenceError: sum is not defined">>} =
    erlang_v8:call(VM, <<"sum">>, [1, 1]).

Stop the VM:

ok = erlang_v8:stop_vm(VM).

VMs can be initialized with code that is automatically reloaded when the VM is reset or restarted:

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

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

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

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

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"}]).

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 desireable to have a pool. Besides, poolboy is easy to set up).

TODO

Lots of testing, improve the communication protocol, clean up api, experiment with calling Erlang from JS, experiment with different ways of passing args to calls (maybe via the communication protocol) etc.