Netscape 'Spidermonkey' JavaScript bindings

[Posted through web interface as posting to mailing list doesn't seem to work?]

Hi there,

First off thanks to David for letting me know about the existance of this 
list.  I currently have the beginnings (compiling with MSVC++ 7.1) of bindings 
for Netscape's 'Spidermonkey' JavaScript Engine (1.5 RC6) with which I can do 
stuff like the following:

...

struct Vector3
{
	float x, y, z;

	float LengthSquared()
	{
		return x*x + y*y + z*z;
	}
};


Declare<Vector3>::Property<0>("x", &Vector3::x);
Declare<Vector3>::Property<1>("y", &Vector3::y);
Declare<Vector3>::Property<2>("z", &Vector3::z);
Declare<Vector3>::Function<0>("lengthSquared", &Vector3::LengthSquared);
Declare<Vector3>::Definition("Vector3", jsContext, jsObject, jsPrototype);

...

Then in JavaScript land I can do:

...

var v = new Vector3();

v.x = 3.0;
v.y = 4.0;
v.z = 5.0;

var l = v.lengthSquared();

...

Of course I wouldn't like to reinvent the wheel or any sub-components of it(!), 
and am more than happy to help build this into something usable by others via 
boost (Including changing coding style from mine to the 'boostified' one ;) ).

I'm aware that my current binding classes/functions don't quite match up with 
boost::python at the moment (_class::def() etc ) for example - and I'm not sure 
if this is a good or bad thing yet (as boost::python has python like syntax of 
course!) and whether or not it will have to change due to the features I have 
yet to add.  Also I have this notion of a property/function index that 
originally came from spidermonkeys 'tinyids' due to the way I evolved the code -
 hence the need for <0>, <1> etc - but this has the added side effect of 
allowing me to change the definition of the exposed classes during runtime - 
replace a function property etc.

Internally I use a static table of type safe function pointers for the get/set 
functions for the properties - although I'm looking to change this so I can 
patch it directly into the function pointers spidermonkey keeps for these (to 
get rid of the un-needed extra level of indirection) - I actually do this for 
classes functions already.

For generating the overloaded templates needed to wrap all combinations of 
class functions to expose I started to look at boost::python's way of doing 
things with the boost::preprocessor library (accompanied by a stiff drink).  
But I think my preference would be to have a small C++ app to generate the code 
instead (Maybe the venerable pre-processor should be replaced by PHP or some 
equivalent one day!).

Obviously I still have a fair amount of work to do - parameter/return value 
ownership, constructors etc.

Anyhow I shall have a good read of this lists archives now...

(BTW in case it gets mentioned I am aware of the CliPP library and am following 
its progress with much interest but unfortunately its interpreter is not as 
complete as the Netscape one yet I believe)

Cheers,

Warrick Buchanan
Senior Tools Engineer
Argonaut Games Plc
www.argonaut.com



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