Embedding JavaScript engine into .NET [closed]

Question

just wondering if anyone has ever tried embedding and actually integrating any js engine into the .net environment. I could find and actually use (after a LOT of pain and effort, since it's pretty outdated and not quite finished) spidermonkey-dotnet project. Anyone with experience in this area? Engines like SquirrelFish, V8..

Not that I'm not satisfied with Mozilla's Spidermonkey (using it for Rails-like miniframework for custom components inside the core ASP.NET application), but I'd still love to explore a bit further with the options. The command-line solutions are not what I'd need, I cannot rely on anything else than CLR, I need to call methods from/to JavaScript/C# objects.

// c# class
public class A
{
    public string Hello(string msg)
    {
        return msg + " whatewer";
    }
}

// js snippet
var a = new A();
console.log(a.Hello('Call me')); // i have a console.log implemented, don't worry, it's not a client-side code :)

Just to clarify - I'm not trying to actually program the application itself in server-side javascript. It's used solely for writing custom user subapplications (can be seen as some sort of DSL). It's much easier (and safer) to allow normal people programming in js than C#.

Answer 1

There is also MsieJavaScriptEngine which uses Internet Explorers Chakra engine

Answer 2

You might also be interested in Microsoft ClearScript which is hosted on GitHub and published under the Ms-Pl licence.

I am no Microsoft fanboy, but I must admit that the V8 support has about the same functionnalities as Javascript.Net, and more important, the project is still maintained. As far as I am concerned, the support for delegates also functions better than with Spidermonkey-dotnet.

ps: It also support JScript and VBScript but we were not interested by this old stuff.

ps: It is compatible with .NET 4.0 and 4.5+

Answer 3

V8.NET is a new kid on the block (as of April 2013) that more closely wraps the native V8 engine functionality. It allows for more control over the implementation.

Answer 4

Use JSCRIPT.NET to get a library(dll) of the js . Then reference this dll in your .NET application and you are just there. DONE!

Answer 5

I guess I am still unclear about what it is you are trying to do, but JScript.NET might be worth looking into, though Managed JScript seems like it may be more appropriate for your needs (it is more like JavaScript than JScript.NET).

Personally, I thought it would be cool to integrate V8 somehow, but I didn't get past downloading the source code; wish I had the time to actually do something with it.

Answer 6

I know I'm opening up an old thread but I've done a lot of work on smnet (spidermonkey-dotnet). In the recent years. It's main development focus has been seamless embedding of .net objects into the spidermonkey engine. It supports a wide variety of conversions from js values to .net objects. Some of those including delegates and events.

Just saying it might be worth checking into now that there's some steady development on it :). I do keep the SVN repo up to date with bug fixes and new features. The source and project solution files are configured to successfully build on download. If there are any problems using it, feel free to open a discussion.

I do understand the desire to have a managed javascript solution, but of all the managed javascript's I've used they're all very lacking in some key features that help make them both robust and easy to work with. I myself am waiting on IronJS to mature a little. While I wait, I have fun playing with spidermonkey-dotnet =)

spidermonkey-dotnet project and download page

Edit: created documentation wiki page this afternoon.