When Google decide to create his own web browser, their engineers build a brand new Javascript engine. Build for speed and memory performance, its adoption into Node.js makes it the most influential engine out there.
A few things was impossible to do in Javascript. Specifically discussing with the engine itself and make use of its native methods. Getting a precise measure of the heap memory size (only possible on Chrome), triggering the garbage collector or getting the optimisation status of a function was inaccessible to Javascripts devs.
Not anymore.
V8.js
Using the flag --allow-natives-syntax on execution now allow you to call all V8's native methods. Since the syntaxe can still be a bit clanky, V8.js wrap it around a more classic library interface.
Install
Like any other library available on NPM, you can install V8.js with one command line:
$ npm install v8.js
Or add a <script> tag in your HTML page:
<script src="https://unpkg.com/v8.js"></script>
<!-- Or -->
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/v8.js"></script>
Usage
Once installed, V8.js can be required and expose a list of functions for you to use.
const v8 = require("v8.js"); // Only for node
v8.getHeapUsage();
Example
const v8 = require("v8.js");
const previousUsage = v8.getHeapUsage();
v8.collectGarbage();
const afterUsage = v8.getHeapUsage();
console.log(`Just cleared ${previousUsage - afterUsage} bytes of memory.`);
I need you !
I still consider it a beta version (hence the v0.2.0 version). So I'll warmly welcome any feedback.
The list of available functions of the v8 engine is quite large and I didn't want to include everything blindly. So if you see something useful V8.js is missing raise a new issue with your use-case.
Peace ✌️
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