JavaScript Tested

JavaScript has seen two sets of unit tests released for the language, as reported by Ajaxian. These unit tests will allow developers to test their implementations of JavaScript to ensure good interoperability with other implementations.

The Microsoft JScript team has released a suite of 900 ECMAScript 5 tests under the New BSD licence which is available to download from Microsoft's Codeplex; these tests are aimed at developers working on implementing ECMAScript 5 which was recently published as a draft. Microsoft are inviting test developers to help expand the suite of tests which in turn should ease the adoption of the next generation of the JavaScript language.

Meanwhile, Google has published Sputnik, a suite of over 5000 tests for JavaScript, specifically ECMAScript 3, the current JavaScript standard. The tests were developed as part of the development of V8, Google's open source JavaScript engine which is found inside the Chrome and Chromium browsers. Again, the tests are licensed under the New BSD licence. In announcing the Sputnik tests, Christian Hansen, a Google engineer, says that the suite has been released more as a mechanism for identifying differences betweeen JavaScript implementations rather than as a conformance test, saying "we learned the hard way that sometimes you have to be incompatible with the spec to be compatible with the web".

(djwm)