Jagged is a simple command-line JavaScript syntax checker. It uses the Mozilla Rhino JavaScript engine.
Jagged checks syntax. It does not "lint" source and make recommendations, nor does it do any runtime analysis. I use it to test things like generated or aggregated JavaScript files.
Jagged uses only one small class (defined in src/Jagged.java) to provide a
command-line interface with Rhino's engine.
A simple compilation script is available is build.sh. To build Jagged, run
this:
$ build.sh
(You will need a modern version of javac for this to work.)
Rhino saddle (rhino-saddle.sh) is a simple Bash script for running Jagged
on one or more JavaScript files. To run a simple test, execute this:
$ ./rhino-saddle.sh test/good.js
Tests: 1, Successes: 1, Failures: 0
The output informs us that one file was tested successfully.
You can use it against multiple files, too. To examine the test scripts, execute this:
$ ./rhino-saddle.sh test/*.js
test/bad.js (ln: 2, ch: 6): missing variable name NEAR r; foo = "
var; foo = "dingo";
Tests: 4, Successes: 3, Failures: 1
This detects a problem in test/bad.js and prints some context information.
The example above illustrates the prime use-case for Jagged: It is not a
linting tool like JSLint or JavaScriptLint. Instead, it is a simple syntax
checker. It just checks to see if the JS can be parsed and prepared for
execution.
Jagged has been tested on thousands of strikingly similar JS files. This has uncovered a few issues that we know about:
- BOMs: Aggregated JS files occasionally contain Unicode BOM (Byte-Order Markers) in the middle of a file. While this is "illegal", it seems that most web browsers simply ignore them. Rhino, however, does not.
- Some reserved words in JavaScript (to wit, 'class', 'float', and the like) are correctly flagged by Rhino, but sometimes ignored by browsers.
- Jagged is a syntax checker. It does not check whether or not referenced objects or functions are in scope, available, etc. Consequently, Jagged won't catch any associated runtime errors.
Rather than modify Rhino or add a number of special exceptions in Jagged, I've
approached these issues in the rhino-saddle.sh script.
Jagged has been tested on Java 1.5+ on OS X 10.6, Debian Etch, and FreeBSD 7.3.