Installing the v8 JavaScript Interpreter Mac OS X Leopard

I’ve been getting a little interested in JavaScript, and a recent conversation with a self-titled “JavaScript Superstar” (Michelle Steigerwalt) has inspired me to get off my ass and prepare my computer to develop JavaScript.

Of course, being me, I have to have the best of the best… so I set out to figure out how to install the v8 JavaScript interpreter (of Chrome fame) as a standalone shell on my Mac. Turned out not to be too hard.

First we need Python, because Google has a permanent hardon for Python (and will almost certainly continue to do so as long as Guido van Rossum is a Google employee). Then we’ll need to install the SCons tool that Google uses internally as a replacement for gnumake. The first is made easy by MacPorts (if you don’t already have that installed, it’s a cinch), and the second is a no-brainer as well.

cd ~/Code/src # or wherever you want to keep the v8 source
sudo /opt/local/bin/port install python25 # You'll need to enter your account password
curl -O http://superb-east.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/scons/scons-1.1.0.tar.gz
tar -xzvf ./scons-1.1.0.tar.gz
cd ./scons-1.1.0
sudo /opt/local/bin/python setup.py install

All that’s left is getting and building v8 itself — for this, you’ll need Subversion (Google’s still a bit behind on the git boat, unfortunately), but that’s included by default with every Leopard install:

svn checkout http://v8.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ ./v8
cd ./v8
scons sample=shell

If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to have that shell available from anywhere - run something like this:

sudo ln -s ~/Code/src/v8/shell /usr/bin/v8

Now you’ve got a working v8-powered JavaScript shell! To launch it and try it out, try the following:

-- v8
V8 version 0.3.4.1
> print('Hello, world!');
Hello, world!
> ^C

You can also pass it a file to be run:

-- echo 'print("Hello, world!");' > test.js
-- v8 test.js
Hello, world!

Be careful, however — this is not a browser, so a lot of the basic JavaScript idioms you may be familiar with won’t be available/make sense.

Have fun playing with ‘purist’ javascript!