Tools or utilities to check correct Javascript syntax

Question

I am aware of tools like JSLint, but I'm not looking for style correctness, I need a tool or utility (preferably one that runs on Linux, bonus points for being in the ubuntu package manager) that can verify the syntactic correctness of a JavaScript file.

I just need to know that there are no syntax errors.

(Full disclosure, was going to put this check in a git commit hook, to ensure that syntactically incorrect JavaScript would not be committed. So it can be a style tool, but needs to be able to produce a "YES SYNTAX GOOD", or "NO SYNTAX BAD" result.)

I never used them to that end but minifiers normally return errors when applied on bad js files. I know Google's Closure compiler does that and you may call it from the command line. — Denys Séguret
– Denys Séguret, Commented Mar 29, 2013 at 18:12

bubba · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-29 19:53:54Z

I believe you think JSLint doesn't verify syntax, but I think it does exactly what you want. Now, for my bonus points! :-) Here is a quick example that should do everything you want, despite using JSLint.

sudo apt-get install spidermonkey-bin
wget http://www.jslint.com/fulljslint.js
mv fulljslint.js /home/admin/bin/js

then create /home/admin/bin/js/runjslint.js:

load('/home/admin/bin/js/fulljslint.js');
var body = arguments[0];
var result = JSLINT(body);
if (result) {
 print('YES SYNTAX GOOD');
} else {
 print('NO SYNTAX BAD');
}
print(JSLINT.report());

This file, when run using Spidermonkey, will check the syntax of Javascript data passed as a command line argument. You might not want that report at the end, thought it might be worth having for you to play with though.

I didn't mean literally YES SYNTAX GOOD, NO SYNTAX BAD, but amusing anyway :P
I figured the more complete the answer, the more likely I could get a little green check mark next to it :-)

gingermusketeer · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-30 14:04:39Z

acorn.js is a really small javascript parser. It throws a javascript error when it encounters a problem.

Download acorn

curl https://raw.github.com/marijnh/acorn/master/acorn.js > acorn.js

Create a runner called acornIt.js with the following contents (requires node to be installed)

var acorn = require('./acorn');
var fs = require('fs');
var fileName = process.argv[2];
var contents = fs.readFileSync(fileName);

try {
   acorn.parse(contents);
   console.log("YES SYNTAX GOOD");
} catch (e) {
   console.log("NO SYNTAX BAD");
   console.log(e); // See where the error occured
}

And run it

node acornIt.js someTestFile.js

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