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ExecJS

ExecJS lets you run JavaScript code from Ruby. It automatically picks the best runtime available to evaluate your JavaScript program, then returns the result to you as a Ruby object.

ExecJS supports these runtimes:

therubyracer - Google V8 embedded within Ruby
therubyrhino - Mozilla Rhino embedded within JRuby
Node.js
Apple JavaScriptCore - Included with Mac OS X
Microsoft Windows Script Host (JScript)

A short example:

require "execjs"
ExecJS.eval "'red yellow blue'.split(' ')"
# => ["red", "yellow", "blue"]

A longer example, demonstrating how to invoke the CoffeeScript compiler:

require "execjs"
require "open-uri"
source = open("http://coffeescript.org/extras/coffee-script.js").read

context = ExecJS.compile(source)
context.call("CoffeeScript.compile", "square = (x) -> x * x", bare: true)
# => "var square;\nsquare = function(x) {\n  return x * x;\n};"

Installation

$ gem install execjs

FAQ

Why can't I use CommonJS require() inside ExecJS?

ExecJS provides a lowest common denominator interface to any JavaScript runtime. Use ExecJS when it doesn't matter which JavaScript interpreter your code runs in. If you want to access the Node API, you should check another library like commonjs.rb designed to provide a consistent interface.

Why can't I use setTimeout?

For similar reasons as modules, not all runtimes guarantee a full JavaScript event loop. So setTimeout, setInterval and other timers are not defined.

Why can't I use ES5 features?

Some runtimes like Node will implement many of the latest ES5 features. However older stock runtimes like JSC on OSX and JScript on Windows may not. You should only count on ES3 features being available. Prefer feature checking these APIs rather than hard coding support for specific runtimes.

Can ExecJS be used to sandbox scripts?

No, ExecJS shouldn't be used for any security related sandboxing. Since runtimes are automatically detected, each runtime has different sandboxing properties. You shouldn't use ExecJS.eval on any inputs you wouldn't feel comfortable Ruby eval()ing.

License

Released under the MIT license. See LICENSE for details.