Interpreting JavaScript outside of the browser?

Question

This is more out of curiosity that a real requirement, but I'm wondering if it's possible to treat JavaScript as (ideally) a first-class .NET citizen, or (secondarily) have some way of invoking/interpreting pure JavaScript functions (that don't require the DOM) in a desktop setting?

Has anyone ever attempted implementing a CLR version of JavaScript? Something tugs at the back of my mind concerning this, but now that I think about it it was PHP, not JavaScript.

Answer 1

According to this page, there used to be 2 "implementations" on the CLR:

http://blogs.ugidotnet.org/nettools/articles/8060.aspx

But both seem to be dead...

Answer 2

For your second option, there's Rhino and things like it.

Answer 3

It's perfectly possible to run JavaScript applications without the use of a web browser. You can do this just by running the application using cscript (typically javascript files end with .js).

Answer 4

JScript is available on .NET as a first-class citizen. It's not exactly JavaScript, but it may be close enough for your needs.

Answer 5

Using the DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime) you can use Managed JScript. See the official JScript blog from Microsoft here.

http://blogs.msdn.com/jscript/archive/2007/05/04/managed-jscript-announced.aspx

This is goes for Ruby (IronRuby), Python (IronPython), and Dynamic VB. You can also write your own DLR language.