Using JavaScript in Your C++ Applications

When Google released their Chrome browser, they included a very fast implementation of JavaScript called V8, the client side scripting language included in all browsers. My first encounter with JavaScript was ten years ago back in the era of Netscape 4.1 and to be honest I hated the language then. Why? Because there were no tools for debugging, each browser had different implementations (and different versions of Netscape browsers differed as well). It wasn't pleasant writing cross-browser code and testing it on lots of different browsers.

But since then, Google Maps and Gmail came along a few years ago using the whole Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) technologies and JavaScript has had a major comeback and there are now one or two decent tools for it. Google's V8 (written in C++) compiles and executes JavaScript source code, handles memory allocation for objects, and garbage collects objects it no longer needs. These design details explain why V8 is so much faster than the JavaScript in other browsers. In short because it compiles to native machine code not bytecode that's interpreted.

If your C++ application requires scripting, i.e. for users to be able to write code that executes at run-time then you could consider embedding V8 in your application. It's licensed under the liberal BSD license. Google have even provided an embedder's guide.

Here's a simple example that Google provides. The classic Hello World in JavaScript (in C++!)

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {

  // Create a string holding the JavaScript source code.
  String source = String::New("'Hello' + ', World'") ;

  // Compile it.
  Script script = Script::Compile(source) ;
  
  // Run it.
  Value result = script->Run() ;

  // Convert the result to an ASCII string and display it.
  String::AsciiValue ascii(result) ;
  printf("%s\n", *ascii) ;
  return 0;
}


• Link to C++ Code Library