How to install and configure Mozilla SpiderMonkey js engine in Ubuntu Server 16.04

Solution 1:

SpiderMonkey is the code-name for the Mozilla's C++ implementation of JavaScript. It is intended to be embedded in other applications that provide host environments for JavaScript.

Ubuntu 21.04-22.04

To install SpiderMonkey in Ubuntu 21.04 and later open the terminal and type:

sudo apt install libmozjs-78-0 libmozjs-78-dev  

To start Mozilla's SpiderMonkey engine, which can also be used as an interactive interpreter, from the terminal type:

js78

Ubuntu 20.04-20.10

To install SpiderMonkey in Ubuntu 18.04-20.04 open the terminal and type:

sudo apt install libmozjs-68-0 libmozjs-68-dev  

To start Mozilla's SpiderMonkey engine, which can also be used as an interactive interpreter, from the terminal type:

js68  

To exit from js68:

quit() 

Ubuntu 18.04-20.10

To install SpiderMonkey in Ubuntu 18.04-20.04 open the terminal and type:

sudo apt install libmozjs-52-0 libmozjs-52-dev  

To start Mozilla's SpiderMonkey engine, which can also be used as an interactive interpreter, from the terminal type:

js52  

To exit from js52:

quit() 

Ubuntu 16.04-17.10

To install SpiderMonkey in Ubuntu 16.04-17.10 open the terminal and type:

sudo apt install libmozjs-24-0v5 libmozjs-24-bin  

To start Mozilla's SpiderMonkey engine, which can also be used as an interactive interpreter, from the terminal type:

js24  

To exit from js24:

quit()  

For additional information about how to execute JavaScript without a web browser see: Executing JavaScript without a browser?. In particular I recommend that you run the foo.js example code at the end of rbrito's answer.

My example code:

#!/usr/bin/js
var animal = "dog";
var count = 2;
console.log("The", animal, "ate", count, "biscuits.");

Results:

The dog ate 2 biscuits.