JavaScript Scripting (Nashorn)

This add-on allows you to use your older ECMAScript 5.1 code on newer Java versions until the code is migrated to ECMAScript 2021+. It should only be installed for providing backwards compatibility. When writing new code it is preferred to do this using ECMAScript 2021+ for which support is provided by installing the JavaScript Scripting (opens new window) add-on.

This add-on uses a standalone Nashorn Engine (opens new window) to run ECMAScript 5.1 code. The Nashorn Engine was pre-installed in openHAB 2 and openHAB 3 because it was part of Java. Since Java 15 the Nashorn Engine has been removed from Java.

Creating JavaScript Scripts

When this add-on is installed, JavaScript script actions will be run by this add-on and allow ECMAScript 5.1 features.

Alternatively, you can create scripts in the automation/jsr223 configuration directory. If you create an empty file called test.nashornjs, you will see a log line with information similar to:

    ... [INFO ] [.a.m.s.r.i.l.ScriptFileWatcher:150  ] - Loading script 'test.nashornjs'

To enable debug logging, use the console logging commands to enable debug logging for the automation functionality:

log:set DEBUG org.openhab.core.automation

For more information on the available APIs in scripts see the JSR223 Scripting documentation.

Script Examples

JavaScript scripts provide access to almost all the functionality in an openHAB runtime environment. As a simple example, the following script logs "Hello, World!". Note that console.log will usually not work since the output has no terminal to display the text. The openHAB server uses the SLF4J (opens new window) library for logging.

var LoggerFactory = Java.type('org.slf4j.LoggerFactory');

LoggerFactory.getLogger("org.openhab.core.automation.examples").info("Hello, World!");

Depending on the openHAB logging configuration, you may need to prefix logger names with org.openhab.core.automation for them to show up in the log file (or you modify the logging configuration).

The script uses the LoggerFactory (opens new window) to obtain a named logger and then logs a message like:

    ... [INFO ] [org.openhab.core.automation.examples ] - Hello, World!

Caught a mistake or want to contribute to the documentation? Edit this page on GitHub (opens new window)