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I'm getting started with Node.js and I'm having a hard time figuring out what version of JavaScript is supported by node which makes it difficult figuring out what features I can use. Here's what I know.
Given this, I would assume I can use JavaScript 1.5 compatible code in node. However, it turns out I can use the Array.forEach, among other constructs, even though according to MDC it isn't available until Javascript 1.6 -- ECMA-262, 5th edition.
Where am I going wrong? Is there a document somewhere that details the available language features?
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Node uses Google's V8 JavaScript engine for language implementation. New language features in Node depend on them being implemented first in V8. The V8 project pushes forward steadily and the team releases a new version roughly every six weeks.
Node js doesn't support ES6 import directly. If we try to use import for importing modules directly in node js it will throw out the error.
Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform, back-end JavaScript runtime environment that runs on the V8 engine and executes JavaScript code outside a web browser, which was designed to build scalable network applications.
The result is that currently Node LTS (16.13. 1), includes V8 9.4, which supports all the ECMAScript 2022 features.
This matrix (V8 follows the WebKit column fairly closely) seems to pretty well answer the question "what features can I use?" but I can't find a canonical answer to "what version of javascript is supported?" As far as I can tell, the best answer is this: ECMA-262 3rd edition is supported, but many features of the 5th edition are also supported.
There's a good explanation of why V8 follows the WebKit and JavaScriptCore functionality on this thread.
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