Chakra is a
free and open-source
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
JavaScript engine
A JavaScript engine is a software component that executes JavaScript code. The first JavaScript engines were mere interpreters, but all relevant modern engines use just-in-time compilation for improved performance.
JavaScript engines are typica ...
developed by
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...
for its
Microsoft Edge Legacy web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
. It is a
fork
In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca ' pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods ...
of the
same-named JScript engine used in
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...
. Like the
EdgeHTML browser engine
A browser engine (also known as a layout engine or rendering engine) is a core software component of every major web browser. The primary job of a browser engine is to transform HTML documents and other resources of a web page into an interactiv ...
, the declared intention was that it would reflect the "Living Web". The core components of ''Chakra'' were open-sourced as ChakraCore.
Standards support
Chakra supports
ECMAScript
ECMAScript (; ES) is a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different browsers. It is standardized by Ecma International in the documenECMA-262
ECMAScript is commonly used for client-side scriptin ...
5.1 with partial support for
ECMAScript
ECMAScript (; ES) is a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different browsers. It is standardized by Ecma International in the documenECMA-262
ECMAScript is commonly used for client-side scriptin ...
2015.
Open sourcing
Following an initial announcement on December 5, 2015,
[Microsoft open sources Edge web browser's JavaScript engine, plans port to Linux](_blank)
on zdnet.com by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (on January 13, 2016) Microsoft open sourced the Chakra engine as ChakraCore, including all the key components of the JavaScript engine powering Microsoft Edge on their GitHub page under the
MIT License
The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license co ...
on January 13, 2016.
ChakraCore is essentially the same as the Chakra engine that powers the
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...
browser, but with platform-agnostic bindings, i.e. without the specific interfaces utilised within the
Universal Windows App platform.
Microsoft has also created a project on
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, co ...
that allows
Node.js
Node.js is an open-source server environment. Node.js is cross-platform and runs on Windows, Linux, Unix, and macOS. Node.js is a back-end JavaScript runtime environment. Node.js runs on the V8 JavaScript Engine and executes JavaScript code ou ...
to use ChakraCore as its JavaScript engine instead of
V8.
Node.js enabled for ChakraCore
on github.com
References
External links
*
{{Microsoft FOSS
JavaScript engines
Microsoft free software
Free software programmed in C++
Software using the MIT license