zig-js-runtime

A fast and easy library to add a Javascript runtime into your Zig project.

With this library you can:

• add Javascript as a scripting language for your Zig project (eg. plugin system, game scripting)
• build a web browser (this library as been developed for the Ligthpanda headless browser)
• build a Javascript runtime (ie. a Node/Bun like)

Features:

• Setup and configure the Javascript engine
• Expose Zig structs as Javascript functions and objects (at compile time)
• Bi-directional "link" between Zig structs and Javascript objects
• Support for inheritance (on Zig structs) and prototype chain (on Javascript objects)
• Support for Javascript asynchronous code (I/O event loop)

Currently only v8 is supported as a Javascript engine, but other engines might be added in the future.

This library is fully single-threaded to matches the nature of Javascript and avoid any cost of context switching for the Javascript engine.

Rationale

Integrate a Javascript engine into a Zig project is not just embeding an external library and making language bindings. You need to handle other stuffs:

• the generation of your Zig structs as Javascript functions and objects (ObjectTemplate and FunctionTemplate in v8)
• the callbacks of Javascript actions into your Zig functions (constructors, getters, setters, methods)
• the memory management between the Javascript engine and your Zig code
• the I/O event loop to support asynchronous Javascript code

This library takes care of all this, with no overhead thanks to Zig awesome compile time capabilities.

Getting started

In your Zig project, let's say you have this basic struct that you want to expose in Javascript:

const Person = struct {
    first_name: []u8,
    last_name: []u8,
    age: u32,

    // Constructor
    // if there is no 'constructor' defined 'new Person()' will raise a TypeError in JS
    pub fn constructor(first_name: []u8, last_name: []u8, age: u32) Person {
        return .{
            .first_name = first_name,
            .last_name = last_name,
            .age = age,
        };
    }

    // Getter, 'get_<field_name>'
    pub fn get_age(self: Person) u32 {
        return self.age;
    }

    // Setter, 'set_<field_name>'
    pub fn set_age(self: *Person, age: u32) void {
        self.age = age;
    }

    // Method, '_<method_name>'
    pub fn _lastName(self: Person) []u8 {
        return self.last_name;
    }
};

You can generate the corresponding Javascript functions at comptime with:

const jsruntime = @import("jsruntime");
pub const Types = jsruntime.reflect(.{Person});

And then use it in a Javascript script:

// Creating a new instance of Person
let p = new Person('John', 'Doe', 40);

// Getter
p.age; // => 40

// Setter
p.age = 41;
p.age; // => 41

// Method
p.lastName(); // => 'Doe'

Let's add some inheritance (ie. prototype chain):

const User = struct {
    proto: Person,
    role: u8,

    pub const prototype = *Person;

    pub fn constructor(first_name: []u8, last_name: []u8, age: u32, role: u8) User {
        const proto = Person.constructor(first_name, last_name, age);
        return .{ .proto = proto, .role = role };
    }

    pub fn get_role(self: User) u8 {
        return self.role;
    }
};

pub const Types = jsruntime.reflect(.{Person, User});

And use it in a Javascript script:

// Creating a new instance of User
let u = new User('Jane', 'Smith', 35, 1); // eg. 1 for admin

// we can use the User getters/setters/methods
u.role; // => 1

// but also the Person getters/setters/methods
u.age; // => 35
u.age = 36;
u.age; // => 36
u.lastName(); // => 'Smith'

// checking the prototype chain
u instanceof User == true;
u instanceof Person == true;
User.prototype.__proto__ === Person.prototype;

Javascript shell

A Javascript shell is provided as an example in src/main_shell.zig.

$ make shell

zig-js-runtime - Javascript Shell
exit with Ctrl+D or "exit"

> 

Build

Prerequisites

zig-js-runtime is written with Zig 0.12. You have to install it with the right version in order to build the project.

To be able to build the v8 engine, you have to install some libs:

For Debian/Ubuntu based Linux:

sudo apt install xz-utils \
    python3 ca-certificates git \
    pkg-config libglib2.0-dev clang

For MacOS, you only need Python 3.

Install and build dependencies

The project uses git submodule for dependencies. The make install-submodule will init and update the submodules in the vendor/ directory.

make install-submodule

Build v8

The command make install-v8-dev uses zig-v8 dependency to build v8 engine lib. Be aware the build task is very long and cpu consuming.

Build v8 engine for debug/dev version, it creates vendor/v8/$ARCH/debug/libc_v8.a file.

make install-v8-dev

You should also build a release vesion of v8 with:

make install-v8

All in one build

You can run make install and make install-dev to install deps all in one.

Development

Some Javascript features are not supported yet:

• Promises and micro-tasks
•  Some Javascript types, including Arrays
• Function overloading
• Types static methods
• Non-optional nullable types

Test

You can test the zig-js-runtime library by running make test.

Credits

• zig-v8 for v8 bindings and build
• Tigerbeetle for the IO loop based on io_uring
• The v8 team for the v8 Javascript engine
• The Zig team for Zig