Concept
BeanShell is a small, free, embeddable Java source interpreter with object scripting language features, written in Java. It runs in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), dynamically executes standard Java syntax and extends it with common scripting conveniences such as loose types, commands, and method closures, like those in Perl and JavaScript. 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 usually be executed interpretively by BeanShell without any changes and, almost just as much, vice versa. This makes BeanShell a popular testing and debugging tool for the Java virtual machine (JVM) platform. BeanShell supports scripted objects as simple method closures like those in Perl and JavaScript. BeanShell is an open source project and has been incorporated into many applications, such as Apache OpenOffice, Apache Ant, WebLogic Server Application Server, Apache JMeter, jEdit, , JUMP GIS, Apache Taverna, and many others. BeanShell provides an easy to integrate application programming interface (API). It can also be run in command-line mode or within its own graphical environment. The first versions of BeanShell (0.96, 1.0) were released by Patrick Niemeyer in 1999, followed by a series of versions. BeanShell 1.3.0 was released in August 2003. Version 2.0b1 was released in September 2003, culminating with version 2.0b4 in May 2005, which as of January 2015 is the newest release posted on the official webpage. BeanShell has been included in the Linux distribution Debian since 1999. BeanShell was undergoing standardization through the Java Community Process (JCP) under JSR 274. Following the JCP approval of the BeanShell JSR Review Ballot in June 2005, no visible activity was taking place around BeanShell. The JSR 274 status is "Dormant".