NodeRunner for Ruby

A simple way to execute Javascript in a Ruby context via Node. (Loosely based on the Node Runtime module from ExecJS.)

Run this command to add this plugin to your project's Gemfile:

$ bundle add node-runner

For Bridgetown websites, you can run an automation to install NodeRunner and set up a builder plugin for further customization.

bin/bridgetown apply https://github.com/bridgetownrb/node-runner

Simply create a new NodeRunner object and pass in the Javascript code you wish to execute:

require "node-runner"

runner = NodeRunner.new(
  <<~JAVASCRIPT
    const hello = (response) => {
      return `Hello? ${response}`
    }
  JAVASCRIPT
)

Then call the function as if it were a genuine Ruby method:

runner.hello "Goodbye!"

# output: "Hello? Goodbye!"

Under the hood, the data flowing in and out of the Javascript function is translated via JSON, so you'll need to stick to standard JSON-friendly data values (strings, integers, arrays, hashes, etc.)

You can also use Node require statements in your Javascript:

runner = NodeRunner.new(
  <<~JAVASCRIPT
    const path = require("path")
    const extname = (filename) => {
      return path.extname(filename);
    }
  JAVASCRIPT
)
  
extname = runner.extname("README.md")

extname == ".md"

# output: true

Multiple arguments for a function work, as do multiple function calls (aka if you define function_one and function_two in your Javascript, you can call runner.function_one or runner.function_two in Ruby).

If you need to customize which node binary is executed, or wish to use your own wrapper JS to bootstrap the node runtime, you can pass a custom instance of NodeRunner::Executor to NodeRunner:

NodeRunner.new "…", executor: NodeRunner::Executor.new(command: "/path/to/custom/node")

command can be an array as well, if you want to attempt multiple paths until one is found. Inspect the node-runner.rb source code for more information on the available options.

A single run of a script is quite fast, nearly as fast as running a script directly with the node CLI…because that's essentially what is happening here. However, the performance characteristics using this in a high-traffic request/response cycle (say, from a Rails app) is unknown. Likely the best context to use Node Runner would be via a background job, or during a build process like when using a static site generator. (Like our parent project Bridgetown!)

• Run bin/rake to run the test suite.

1. Fork it (https://github.com/bridgetownrb/node-runner/fork)
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create a new Pull Request