Java Scripting:

One VM, Many Languages

Sang Shin
sang.shin@sun.com
javapassion.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Agenda
• Quick overview
• Scripting API
• Java SE 6 Scripting Support
• Demo
• Future Directions
• Resources
Quick Overview
Scripting Languages
• Typically dynamically typed languages
> No need to define variables before you use them
> Many type conversions happen automagically
> Can be good...
> Can be bad...
• Most scripting languages are interpreted
> Perform the script compilation and execution within the
same process
• Very good for fast results for small jobs
> Write application faster, execute commands repeatedly
Different Languages, different jobs
• Perl
> Text processing, report generation
• Bash, sh, ksh
> job control
• Ruby
> Web based applications
Java Programming Language
and Ruby Compared
public class Filter {
public static void main(String[] args) {
List list = new java.util.ArrayList();
list.add(“Tim"); list.add(“Ike"); list.add(“Tina");
Filter filter = new Filter();
for (String item : filter.filterLongerThan(list, 3)) {
System.out.println( item );
}
}
public List filterLongerThan(List list, int length) {
List result = new ArrayList();
for (String item : list) {
if (item.length() >= length) { result.add( item ); }
}
return result;
}
}
Java Programming Language
and Ruby Compared
Ruby!

list = [‘Tim’, ‘Ike’, ‘Tina’]

list.select {|n| n.length > 3}.each {|n| puts n}

=> ‘Tina’
Scripting Over
Java Platform
Why Scripting Languages & Java
together?
• Combining scripting languages with the Java
platform provides developers and end-users an
opportunity to leverage the abilities of both
environments
• Use scripting languages for quick and easy
development & testing for certain parts of your
applications
• Use Java programming language and platform for
what it is known for
> Scalable and highly performing business logics
Why Scripting Languages & Java
together?
• Allows end-users to customize the applications
further
Java Platform Supports Scripting
Languages Well!
• Java Language != Java Platform
> Java VM runs “language-neutral” bytecode
> Rich set of Class libraries are “language-neutral”
> “Write once run anywhere” applies to Platform
> Leverage programmer skills and advantages of particular
languages
• Time-tested technologies
> Open-source projects for various languages
> Jakarta BSF
The Virtual Machine

and more...

Development The Virtual Machine Devices

And Announced Recently

• Ruby Support from Sun

> JRuby @ Sun
> Building full Ruby and
Rails Support right in
the Virtual Machine
> A new team
• NetBeans Tools
> Ruby and Rails
> JavaScript Support
Client Scripting Scenarios
• Class files written in other languages
> Groovy
> Jython Compiler
> Kawa Scheme
> JRuby
• Java applications execute script programs
> Stand-alone interpreter
> Macro interpreters
> Web Scripting
• In both cases, programs use Java Objects/Libraries
Scripting Scenarios

Java Libraries
VIRTUAL VIRTUAL VIRTUAL MACHINE
MACHINE MACHINE JAVA VIRTUAL MACHINE

Native Scripting Java Virtual Machine Web

The Community does Both... Living the Java Lifestyle... Leverage the VM
(port and run) (multiple languages)

= You do = We do
Scripting Framework
& API over Java Platform
Scripting framework
• JSR 223 defines the scripting framework
• It supports pluggable framework for third-party script
engines
> Resembles BSF ActiveX Scripting
> “Java application runs script programs” scenario
• javax.script package
• Optional javax.script.http package for Web scripting
• Part of Java SE 6
• Available for Java 5.0
Scripting API

• ScriptEngine
• ScriptContext, Bindings
• ScriptEngineFactory
• ScriptEngineManager
Interfaces

• ScriptEngine interface—required
> Execute scripts—“eval” methods
> Map Java objects to script variables (“put” method)
• Invocable interface—optional
> Invoke script functions/methods
> Implement Java interface using script functions/methods
• Compilable interface—optional
> Compile Script to intermediate form
> Execute multiple times without recompilation
ScriptEngine API
• ScriptEngine (Interface)
> eval()
> put()
> get()
> getBindings()/setBindings()
> createBindings()
> getContext()/setContext()
> getFactory()
• AbstractScriptEngine
> Standard implementation of several eval() methods
ScriptEngineManager
• Provides the ScriptEngine discovery mechanism
> getEngineByName()
> getEngineByExtension()
> getEngineByMimeType()
> getEngineFactories()
• Developers can add script engines to a JRE
> with the JAR Service Provider specification
Example – Hello world
import javax.script.*;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) throws ScriptException {
// Create a script engine manager
ScriptEngineManager factory = new ScriptEngineManager();

// Create JavaScript engine

ScriptEngine engine = factory.getEngineByName("JavaScript");

// Add a script variable whose value is a Java Object

engine.put(“greeting”, new Exception(“Hello World!”));

// Evaluate JavaScript code from String

engine.eval("print(greeting.toString())");
}
Example - “eval” script file

// Create script engine manager

ScriptEngineManager manager = new ScriptEngineManager();

// Create JavaScript engine

ScriptEngine engine = manager.getEngineByExtension(“js”);

// Evaluate a file (or any java.io.Reader)

engine.eval(new FileReader(“test.js”));
Example – Invoking functions

// JavaScript code in a String

String script = "function hello(name) { print('Hello, ' + name); }";

// Evaluate script
engine.eval(script);

// JavaScript engine implements Invocable interface

Invocable inv = (Invocable) engine;

// Invoke a global function called “hello”

inv.invoke("hello", new Object[] {"Scripting!!"} );
Mapping script variables to
application objects
ScriptContext and Bindings
(interface)
• ScriptContext—Script’s view of host application
• ScriptContext contains one or more Bindings
• Bindings is subtype of Map<String, Object>
• Scope is a set of named attributes
• Engine Scope Bindings
> Script variables → application objects
• Global Scope Bindings
> Variables shared across engines
• Writers for stdout, stderr
• Reader for stdin
ScriptContext and Bindings (cont.)
• Exposes readers/writers for script engines to use for
input and output
> setBindings()/getBindings()
> setAttributes()/getAttribute()
> setWriter()/getWriter()
> setReader()/getReader()
• SimpleScriptContext
Example – Script variables
// Create script engine manager
ScriptEngineManager manager = new ScriptEngineManager();

// Create JavaScript engine

ScriptEngine engine = manager.getEngineByName(“JavaScript”);
File f = new File(“test.txt”);

// Expose File object as variable to script

engine.put(“file”, f);

// Evaluate a script string wherein the “file” variable is accessed, and a

// method is called upon it
engine.eval(“print(file.getAbsolutePath())”);
ScriptEngineFactory (interface)
• Describe and instantiate script engines
> 1-1 with ScriptEngines
• Factory method—getScriptEngine
• Metadata methods
> Script file extensions, mimetypes
> Implementation-specific behavior (threading)
• Script generation methods
> Generate method call
> Generate “print” call
ScriptEngineFactory (cont.)
• Each script engine has a ScriptEngineFactory
> getEngineName()
> getEngineVersion()
> getExtensions()
> getMimeTypes()
> getLanguageName()
> getProgram()
> getScriptEngine()
Other Scripting Classes
• CompiledScript
> Compiled version of script
> No requirement for reparsing
> Associated with a script engine
• ScriptException
> All checked exceptions must be wrapped in this type
> Records line number, column number, filename
• Bindings/SimpleBindings
> Mapping of key/value pairs, all strings
Java SE 6 Scripting
Support
Javascript Engine
• Based on Mozilla Rhino 1.6v2
• Features omitted for security/footprint reasons
> Optimizer (script-to-bytecode compiler – only interpreter
support)
> E4X (XML language support) – depends on xmlbeans.jar
> Rhino command line tools (shell, debugger etc.)
• Security Tweaks
Scripting Tools / Samples
• Tools
> <JDK>/bin directory
> jrunscript
> Interactive command-line interpreter.
> jhat
> Processes heap analysis tool output
> jconsole scripting plugin
• Samples
> Script notepad
> Swing application mostly implemented in Javascript
> Fancy Javascript programming.
Demo
Programmable Calculator
● From “Scripting for the Java Platform” by John
O'Connor
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2SE/Desktop/scripting/
● 100% Java Swing application
● Customizable using end-users' scripts
● Uses Java SE Javascript engine
● Enhanced to use any JSR 223 Engine
Demo: Scripting over Java SE
• Build and run ScriptPad sample app from JDK 6
samples
> You can build and run as NetBeans project
• Executing JavaScript code
• Invoking Java methods from JavaScript code
Scripting on the
Server side
Scripting in Java EE
• Web-tier is a natural place for scripting
> tends to have high rate of change
• JSP is already very script-like
> allow mixing of Java language and tags on HTML page
• Project Phobos supports JavaScript
> as server-side web page scripting language
> as lightweight way of implementing servlets
> see phobos.dev.java.net
Sample JRuby Script
$response.setStatus(200)
$response.setContentType("text/html")
writer = $response.getWriter()
writer.println("<html><head><title>Hello</title></hea
d><body>Hello from JRuby!</body></html>")
writer.flush()
Application Layout
/application /static
/controller /dojo
test.js dojo.js
/module /css
application.js main.css
/script faq.html
index.js release_notes.html
hello.rb
/template /environment
/view development.js
layout.ejs startup-glassfish.js
test.ejs
Future Direction
Language JSRs
• invokedynamic Bytecode – JSR 292
> http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=292
> Used for better compilation of dynamically-typed scripts
• Groovy – JSR 241
> http://groovy.codehaus.org/
• BeanShell – JSR 272
> http://www.beanshell.org
JSR 292 – invokedynamic bytecode
• To enable the compilation of dynamically typed
languages such as Groovy, Jruby, Jython to JVM
bytecodes, a new bytecode called invokedynamic
is being proposed as part of JSR 292
• The invokedynamic will not require target class
name, and the method signature.
• It will search the specified method on the target
object based on the method name
> JSR will specify how to handle method overloading in
such scenario
> JSR will specify how to handle failures
JSR 292 – invokedynamic bytecode
• There are 4 JVM bytecodes to call methods:
> invokeinterface - used to call an interface method on an
object
> invokestatic - used to call a static method of a class
> invokevirtual - used to call a overridable method
> invokespecial - used to call
> constructors
> private instance methods
> super class methods (super.foo() calls in the source)
JSR 292 – invokedynamic bytecode
• All these instructions require the specification of
> target class (or interface for invokeinterface) name
> the name of the method (or <init> for constructors)
> the signature of the method.
JSR 292 – invokedynamic bytecode
Impact on Groovy
• Groovy today supports a flexible method
dispatching mechanism
class Main { class Person {
public static void main(String[] args) {
// see Person class below.. public void work() {
Person p = new Person(); System.out.println("Okay, I'll work tomorrow!");
System.out.println("Starting..."); }

// call methods that are defined in Person class public void greet() {
p.work(); System.out.println("Hello, World!");
p.greet(); }

// call methods that are not defined in Person public Object invokeMethod(String name,
Object args) {
// or it's superclass
System.out.println("Why are you calling " +
p.surfTheNet(); name + "?"); }}
p.writeBlog(); }}
Server-side scripting – Phobos
• http://phobos.dev.java.net
• Borrows from Ruby on Rails
> Speed of development
> Well-organized application structure
• Access to enterprise Java
• Javascript libraries
• Support for other technologies
> AJAX
> RSS / Atom
Resources
Resources - scripting.dev.java.net
• BSD License
• Scripting Engines
> jruby, groovy, beanshell, jacl, jaskell, java,
jawk,jelly,jexl,jruby,javascript,jython,ognl,pnuts,scheme,sl
eep,xpath,xslt
• Applications
> NetBeans Scripting module
• Also see coyote.dev.java.net
> NetBeans Scripting IDE
> Jython, groovy support
Resources - references
• JSR-223
> http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=223
• A. Sundararajan's Blog
> http://blogs.sun.com/sundararajan
• Roberto Chinnici's Blog (serverside scripting)
> http://weblogs.java.net/blog/robc/
• JavaScript Developer Connection
> http://java.sun.com/javascript
 Java Scripting:
One VM, Many Languages

Sang Shin
sang.shin@sun.com
javapassion.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc.