narwhal

A JavaScript standard library, package manager, and more. [deprecated]

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JavaScript

Narwhal

A general purpose JavaScript platform

Narwhal is a cross-platform, multi-interpreter, general purpose JavaScript
platform. It aims to provide a solid foundation for building JavaScript
applications, primarily outside the web browser. Narwhal includes a package
manager, module system, and standard library for multiple JavaScript
interpreters. Currently Narwhal’s Rhino
support is the most complete, but other engines are available
too.

Narwhal’s standard library conforms to the CommonJS
standard. It is designed to work with multiple
JavaScript interpreters, and to be easy to add support for new interpreters.
Wherever possible, it is implemented in pure JavaScript to maximize reuse of
code among engines.

Combined with Jack, a
Rack-like
JSGI compatible library, Narwhal provides a
platform for creating server-side JavaScript web applications and frameworks
such as Nitro.

Homepage:

Source & Download:

Mailing list:

IRC:

Documentation

Note: If you are viewing this on GitHub, the links below will not work. Find the pages listed below in the docs/ directory of this repository.

Quick Start

Download Narwhal.

  • download and extract the
    zip or
    tar archive, or
  • git clone git://github.com/280north/narwhal.git

Put Narwhal on your PATH environment variable.

  • export PATH=$PATH:~/narwhal/bin, or
  • source narwhal/bin/activate

Run narwhal or js (they are equivalent).

  • js narwhal/examples/hello

Look at the options for Narwhal.

  • js --help

And for Tusk, the package manager and virtual environment tool.

  • tusk help

My First Web Server

Create a project “hello-web”.

tusk init hello-web
cd hello-web

Enter your project as a “virtual environment” using activate or sea so that
its libraries, binaries, and packages get automatically installed when you run
Narwhal.

source bin/activate

or

bin/sea

Install some packages you will need, like Jack, the JSGI standard library for
interoperable web services.

tusk install jack

Tusk gets downloaded and installed at “hello-web/packages/jack”.

Create your jackconfig.js.

exports.app = function(env) {
    var text = "Hello, Web!";
    return {
        status : 200,
        headers : {
            "Content-Type" : "text/plain",
            "Content-Length" : String(text.length)
        },
        body : [text]
    };
};

Run it!

jackup

jackup looks for a file called jackconfig.js in the current directory, or
you can specify a path to a Jack application.

Open http://localhost:8080/ in your web browser.

Module System Basics

Narwhal “scripts” are CommonJS
compatible modules, much like Python or Ruby modules. You do not have to use
module pattern boilerplate; every module has its own local scope. You can get
the exports object of another module by calling require.

var FS = require("file");
FS.isFile("foo.txt");

Module identifiers for require come in three flavors: “top-level”,
“relative”, and “absolute”. In the above case, file is a “top-level”
identifier, so it will load any module called file.js in the lib directory
of whichever package comes first in the load path. Relative identifiers have
. or .. as their first term, and terms are delimited with /. So, in the
foo/bar module, require('./baz') will load foo/baz. Absolute module
identifiers should not be used directly, but are produced when you execute a
program module outside the module path. The module is identified by its
fully-qualified path, starting with /.

You can export an object by assigning it to exports.

exports.foo = function () {
    return "Hello";
};

In a module, you also get a module object that has module.id and
module.path properties so you can inspect your own top-level module
identifier, and the path of your own module file. You also get a
require.main property that tells you the top-level module identifier of the
module that started the program.

if (require.main == module)
    main();

var settings = require(require.main);

var FS = require("file");
var path = FS.path(module.path);
var indexHtml = path.resolve("./template/index.html").read();

Beyond the CommonJS specification, you also get the print function and the
system module object for free. The print function accepts variadic
arguments and writes a single line containing the arguments delimited by spaces
to standard output and flushes. The system module can be explicitly required
with require("system") as is encouraged since it is necessary for CommonJS
compliance. Do not use print or system in standard libraries.

Summary of Included Modules

  • system: args, env, stdin, stdout, stderr
  • io: ByteIO (read, write, toByteString, toString), StringIO
    (read, write, copy, flush, iterator, forEach, readLine,
    readLines, next, print, toString, substring, slice, substr), IO
    (read, write, copy, flush, close, isatty), TextInputStream
    (raw, readLine, next, iterator, forEach, close), TextOutputStream
    (write, writeLine, writeLines, print, flush, close)
  • file: open, read, write, copy, link, symlink, rename,
    move, remove, mkdir, mkdirs, rmdir, rmtree, touch, chmod,
    chown, list, listTree, listDirectoryTree, copyTree, isAbsolute,
    isRelative, isDrive, isReadable, isWritable, glob, globPaths,
    fnmatch, match, cwd, cwdPath, join, split, resolve,
    relative, absolute, normal, canonical, root, dirname,
    basename, extension, path, new Path (to, from, …)
  • os: exit, sleep, popen (wait, stdin, stdout, stderr,
    communicate (status, stdin, stdout, stderr)), system, command,
    status, enquote
  • binary: Binary (toArray, toByteArray, toByteString, indexOf,
    lastIndexOf, valueOf), ByteString (length, toString, split,
    slice, substr, substring, toSource), ByteArray (toString, pop,
    push, extendRight, unshift, extendLeft, reverse, slice,
    splice, split, forEach, every, some, map, reduce,
    reduceRight, displace, toSource)
  • assert: AssertionError, fail, ok, equal, notEqual, deepEqual,
    notDeepEqual, strictEqual, notStrictEqual, throws, Assert (pass,
    error, section)
  • test: run, Log (flush, pass, fail, error, begin, end,
    report, print, section, Assert), Section (print)
  • util: operator, no, object, array, string, apply, copy,
    deepCopy, repr, keys, values, items, len, has, get, set,
    getset, cut, put, first, last, update, deepUpdate, complete,
    deepComplete, remove, range, forEach, forEachApply, map,
    mapApply, every, some, all, any, reduce, reduceRight, zip,
    transpose, enumerate, is, eq, ne, lt, gt, le, ge, mul,
    by, compare, sort, sorted, reverse, reversed, hash, unique,
    escape, enquote, expand, trim, trimBegin, trimEnd, padBegin,
    padEnd, splitName, joinName, lower, upper, camel, title
  • http: open, read
  • sha, sha256, md5, md4, crc32: hash
  • utf8, base64, base16: encode, decode
  • jsmin: encode
  • jsonpath: resolve
  • logger: Logger (add, format)
  • args: Parser (parse, option, (_, __, name, displayName,
    getName, getDisplayName, action, set, push, inc, dec,
    choices, def, validate, input, output, number, oct, hex,
    integer, natural, whole, bool, todo, inverse, help, halt,
    hidden), group (option), def, reset, command, arg, args,
    act, action, helpful, usage, help, printHelp, printUsage,
    printCommands, printOption, printOptions, error, exit, print,
    check), UsageError, ConfigurationError
  • term: Stream (enable, disable, writeCode, print, printError,
    write, update, moveTo, moveBy, home, clear, clearUp,
    clearDown, clearLine, clearRight, error (print, write)),
    colors, stream
  • uuid: uuid
  • mime: bestMatch, parseMimeType, parseMediaRange,
    fitnessAndQualityParsed, qualityParsed, quality
  • html: escapeHTML, stripTags
  • ref-send, promise, events: when, defer (resolve, reject,
    promise),
  • event-loop: enqueue
  • printf: printf, fprintf, sprintf
  • querystring: unescape, escape, stringify, parseQuery
  • sandbox: Sandbox
  • loader: Loader (resolve, resolvePkg, find, fetch, load,
    reload, isLoaded, hasChanged, paths, extensions), resolve,
    resolvePkg
  • packages: order, catalog
  • interpreter: Context (eval, importScript, importScripts, Module,
    Function)
  • zip: unzip, Unzip (iterator, forEach, close), Entry
    (getName, isDirectory, open, read, copy)

Contributors

License

Copyright © 2009, 280 North Inc. <280north.com>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to
deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the
rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or
sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER
IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.