BeanShell is a Java scripting language, invented by Pat Niemeyer. It runs in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and utilizes Java's own syntax, in addition to scripting commands and syntax. While BeanShell allows its users to define functions that can be called from within a script, its underpinning philosophy has been to not pollute its syntax with too many extensions and "syntactic sugar", thereby ensuring that code written for a Java compiler can almost always be executed interpretively by BeanShell without any changes and, almost just as much, vice versa. This makes BeanShell a popular testing and debugging tool. Java is an object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems in the early 1990s. ... Scripting languages (commonly called scripting programming languages or script languages) are computer programming languages that are typically interpreted and can be typed directly from a keyboard. ... The Java Runtime Environment, or JRE, is a software bundle from Sun Microsystems that allows a computer system to run a Java application. ... This article describes the syntax of programming languages. ... Syntactic sugar is a term coined by Peter J. Landin for additions to the syntax of a computer language that do not affect its expressiveness but make it sweeter for humans to use. ... This article is about the computing term. ... An interpreter is a computer program that executes other programs. ...

BeanShell supports scripted objects as simple method closures like those in Perl and JavaScript(tm).

BeanShell is an open source project and has been incorporated into many applications, such as OpenOffice.org, Apache Ant, BEA WebLogic Application Server, jEdit, and many others. BeanShell provides an easy to integrate API. It can also be run in command-line mode or within its own graphical environment. The Java Community Process approved JSR 274, which means BeanShell will eventually become part of the Java platform. Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... OpenOffice. ... Apache Ant is a software tool for automating software build processes. ... BEA WebLogic is a J2EE application server and also an HTTP web server by BEA Systems of San Jose, California, for Unix, Linux, Microsoft Windows, and other platforms. ... jEdit is a text editor for programmers available under the GNU General Public License. ... API may refer to: In computing, application programming interface In petroleum industry, American Petroleum Institute In education, Academic Performance Index This page concerning a three-letter acronym or abbreviation is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The Java Community Process or JCP, established in 1995, is a formalized process which allows interested parties to be involved in the definition of future versions and features of the Java platform. ... The Java platform is the name for a computing environment, or platform, from Sun Microsystems which can run applications developed using the Java programming language and set of development tools. ...

External links

• BeanShell homepage
• JSR-274: BeanShell Java Specification Request