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Taming Mustang, Part 2: Scripting API Tour

  • Nov 2, 2007
In Part 2 of Jeff Friesen's three-part series on Mustang's new features, he shows you the elements of Mustang’s new Scripting API.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on Feb 23, 2007. It was updated on November 2, 2007.

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Last time, I introduced a three-part series that explores new Java Standard Edition 6 features not covered in my Start Saddling Up for Mustang article for JavaWorld, and my Mustang (Java SE 6) Gallops into Town InformIT article. Part 1 explored enhancements to the Collections API.

Here in Part 2 you'll take a tour of Mustang's new Scripting API, which lets you create programs that are part Java and part scripting language. This hybrid "Java/scripting language" approach to developing software benefits from Java's wealth of APIs and its other advantages, and from scripting language advantages such as support for dynamic typing.

About the Code

I developed and tested this article's Java applications using Java SE 6 Build 105. Windows XP Service Pack 2 was the underlying platform. You can download the code here.

Tour the Scripting API

JSR 223: Scripting for the Java Platform is the Java Specification Request (JSR) under which the Scripting API was created. This JSR's goal is to "describe mechanisms allowing scripting language programs to access information developed in the Java Platform and allowing scripting language pages to be used in Java Server-side Applications."

Although early versions of JSR 223 introduced the Web Scripting Framework (which was assigned to package javax.scripting.http) for generating Web content in servlet containers, this framework became optional as the specification evolved. Because the Web Scripting Framework is not included in Mustang, it is not discussed in this article.

Note

Although this article's Scripting API tour is extensive, for the sake of brevity it does not cover every item.

The Scripting API is associated with package javax.script. This package identifies six classes and six interfaces. You will be introduced to each class and interface as you read this article.

  • AbstractScriptEngine
  • Bindings
  • Compilable
  • CompiledScript
  • Invocable
  • ScriptContext
  • ScriptEngine
  • ScriptEngineFactory
  • ScriptEngineManager
  • ScriptException
  • SimpleBindings
  • SimpleScriptContext

In addition to javax.script, Mustang introduces a single script engine (a plug-in that evaluates a scripting language's scripts by executing their intermediate code). This script engine evaluates JavaScript scripts and is based on Mozilla Rhino version 1.6R2. Mozilla's Rhino: JavaScript for Java page provides more information on Mozilla Rhino.

Note

Not all of Mozilla Rhino's features are supported. For example, Sun's implementation of Mozilla Rhino does not support JavaScript-to-bytecode compilation. To see what else has been omitted (or is handled differently by Sun), examine the "JavaScript Script Engine" section of the Java Scripting Programmer's Guide in Sun's JDK 6 documentation.

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