Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of JavaScriptCore

Timestamp:

10/05/11 14:31:14 (20 months ago)

Author:

ariya@webkit.org

Comment:

let's just call it JavaScriptCore, without ".. Overview" suffix

JavaScriptCore

@@ +1 @@
+= JavaScriptCore =
+
+JavaScriptCore is the built-in JavaScript engine for WebKit. It currently implements [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript ECMAScript] as in [http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm ECMA-262 specification].
+
+JavaScriptCore is often referred with different names, such as [http://www.webkit.org/blog/189/announcing-squirrelfish/ SquirrelFish] and [http://www.webkit.org/blog/214/introducing-squirrelfish-extreme/ SquirrelFish Extreme]. Within the context of Safari, Nitro and Nitro Extreme (the marketing terms from Apple) are also commonly used. However, the name of the project and the library is always '''JavaScriptCore'''.
+
+JavaScriptCode source code resides in WebKit source tree, it's under [http://trac.webkit.org/browser/trunk/Source/JavaScriptCore Source/JavaScriptCore] directory.
+
+Note that while Chromium uses WebKit as the rendering engine, it [http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2008/09/google-chrome-chromium-and-v8-launch.html does not] use JavaScriptCore as the JavaScript engine. Rather, Chromium uses [http://code.google.com/p/v8/ V8] (which is not a WebKit project).
+
+== Core Engine ==
+
+Like a typical scripting engine, JavaScriptCore consists of the following building blocks: lexer, parser, and interpreter.
+
+'''Lexer''' is responsible for the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_analysis lexical analysis], i.e. breaking down the script source into a series of ''tokens''. JavaScriptCore lexer is hand-written, it is mostly in [http://trac.webkit.org/browser/trunk/Source/JavaScriptCore/parser/Lexer.h parser/Lexer.h] and [http://trac.webkit.org/browser/trunk/Source/JavaScriptCore/parser/Lexer.cpp parser/Lexer.cpp].
+
+'''Parser''' carries out the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parser syntactic analysis], i.e. consuming the tokens from the lexer and building the corresponding syntax tree. JavaScriptCore uses a hand-written [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_descent_parser recursive descent parser], the code is in 
+[http://trac.webkit.org/browser/trunk/Source/JavaScriptCore/parser/JSParser.h parser/JSParser.h] and [http://trac.webkit.org/browser/trunk/Source/JavaScriptCore/parser/JSParser.cpp parser/JSParser.cpp].
+
+'''Interpreter''' executes the bytecodes produced by the parser. JavaScriptCore has two types of interpreter: bytecode-based and JIT-based. The former runs the bytecodes in a virtual machine, the latter uses JIT (Just-in-time) compiling approach to produce native machine codes in order to have a faster execution. The bulk of the interpreter code is in [http://trac.webkit.org/browser/trunk/Source/JavaScriptCore/interpreter interpreter/] subdirectory with the JIT compiler in [http://trac.webkit.org/browser/trunk/Source/JavaScriptCore/jit jit/] subdirectory.
+
+(More to be written)
+
+== Runtime ==
+
+(To be written)
+
+== Binding ==
+
+(To be written)