Thanks for taking time explaining. My understanding is that I could do
public static compiledScript =Context.compileReader()   in main thread
and compiledScript.exec() in any newly created threads after that as long as
the script does not have any unusual usage,   Is that correct?
The javadoc of Rhino always mentions Context has to be associated with relevant threads,
which is why I ask this question.

Attila Szegedi wrote:
Okay, there are several differences in the design of the two languages that make it more difficult for Rhino to work that way:

1. FreeMarker language is designed so that the execution of the template can't mutate the data you passed in. A template can define new variables that are local to an individual "process()" call, but it completely lacks language elements that would modify the passed-in ones (redefining existing names will simply result in a new local that "shadows" the original; much like JavaScript does with a prototype scope + a top level thread local scope). JavaScript, being a generic imperative programming language, doesn't live with this constraint per se. Best you can do to lower the overhead is the use-shared-global-scope-as-prototype approach that both Martin Blom and I mentioned, although as we both said, it breaks the isolation of programs from one another, but again, it shouldn't be much of a problem if your scripts don't actually go rogue on those shared objects.

2. FreeMarker's runtime execution model does define a program loading and caching mechanism, JavaScript doesn't have one, by design. In JavaScript, it's up to the host environment to provide program loading. Behind FreeMarker's "getTemplate()" call (and its [#include] directive) there's a whole loading, compiling, and memory-sensitive caching mechanism. Again, in JavaScript, and consequently Rhino, there is no such thing. You can get something similar by using existing web frameworks that support Rhino, or roll your own. However, in basic case, just using Context.compileReader() and then repeatedly calling exec() on the resulting Script object is all you need.

Lots of people use the shared global scope + precompiled scripts with Rhino and are quite happy with the performance. If you implement these measures, there's good chance you'll be happy too; if not, you'll have to profile your system, identify actual bottlenecks, and then please come back to us and we'll see what we can do. But first try shared global scope + precompiled scripts.

Hope that helps.

Attila.

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On 2009.08.31., at 1:13, DVD wrote:

Hi, there. I have been using freemarker :-). I'd like to clarify if I could do the similar way to that of freemarker
in freemarker, I could do during program init (main thread)
class Main{

  static Configuration cfg = new Configuration();
  static cfg.setDirectoryForTemplateLoading(new File("dir"));

      static Template temp = cfg.getTemplate("test.ftl");
}
then in any other methods (whatever thread it could be)  just do
Map root =  .... (fillup data model)
Main.temp.process(root,....)

I have not seen an example for rhino to do this way. The template would only do normal template processing. no fancy stuff. Can Rhino have a mode to do this way with thread safety gurranteed.
Thanks very much.


Attila Szegedi wrote:
What other template engines work this way? (I'm one of primary developers of FreeMarker, and the concept doesn't strike me as familiar there :-) )

Anyway, this too is possible. In one context (say, the one that also compiles the script, although this is not strictly necessary):

globalScope = cx.initStandardObjects();

then in the repeated contexts (i.e. those handling HTTP requests), just do:

ScriptablelocalScope = cx.newObject(globalScope);
localScope.setPrototype(globalScope);

although you will likely also need to create the contexts through a context factory that returns true for hasFeature(FEATURE_DYNAMIC_SCOPE) if you do that. Anyway, you can try without that actually, but if you run into weird behaviour with properties missing in the global scope. Also, be aware that now the global scope became shared mutable state between threads. If your JS scripts are good citizens, and don't do fancy stuff like redefine the Array constructor or such (that is, treat the stuff in global scope as immutable) then you'll be fine.

Attila.

On 2009.08.30., at 16:11, DVD wrote:

What I would expect is Rhinoe would have a mode that allows the following (it is ok to disable some features such as concurrentcy within JS to make it happen)

public static context = Context.enter(); public static globalCompiledScript = context.compile(script)
public static globalScope = .....
(the above is done in main thread , not threadlocal, just done once during program init)

then in each thread,
localScope = .....  (localscope backdropped by globalscope)
globalCompiledScript .exec(localscope)

Most other template engines work this way. would it be possible for Rhino?


Martin Blom wrote:
DVD wrote:

Thanks.  I have many threads come and go instead of a fixed pool so
the overhead is big.
I hope rhino to have a mode that would allow a preloaded/compiled JS
(template) to be executed repeatedly
with different scope (essentially a template engine ) to produce an
output string.
the template would run in only single thread before producing the output. Equivalent of Freemarker engine. Would it be possible? Or because of
this issue,
Rhino has not been widely used as template engine for Java, compared
to others like
velocity/freemarker.

This should definitely not be a problem.

In ESXX, for instance, I have an ExecutorService with a ThreadFactory
that enters/leaves a JS context as part of the thead's lifespan. These threads then handles requests by calling functions in a JS application scope. The application scope is set up once when the JS app is loaded,
by executing the pre-compiled JS scripts files (using
Context.compileString()) with it.

If you want your requests to execute isolated from each other, you can simply create a new global scope and execute the compiled script with it
for each request.

(It's also possible to mix these strategies by having a shared top-level
scope and using the prototype chain to add per-request scopes (needs
Context.FEATURE_DYNAMIC_SCOPE, I think), but I could never quite get
this to work properly, since in ESXX, I need to allow arbitrary Java
threads to call JS functions, and there were some issues that I have
forgotten about now.)
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