Node(15) vm

vm is similar to eval(), but eval() can change the surrounding context, whereas vm cannot

vm is like creating a sandbox, the code will be executed in the different namespace instead of running in the current namespace.

var vm = require( 'vm' )
vm.runInThisContext( "1+1+1" )
//3

The difference:

var localVar = 123,
    usingscript, evaled,
    vm = require('vm');

usingscript = vm.runInThisContext('localVar = 1;',
  'myfile.vm');  //'myfile.vm' is only for generating appropriate error msg
console.log('localVar: ' + localVar + ', usingscript: ' +
  usingscript);
evaled = eval('localVar = 1;');
console.log('localVar: ' + localVar + ', evaled: ' +
  evaled);

// localVar: 123, usingscript: 1
// localVar: 1, evaled: 1

create and run in  context:

var vm = require( 'vm');
var context = { alphabet:""};
vm.runInNewContext( "alphabet += 'a'", context);
vm.runInNewContext( "alphabet += 'b'", context);

console.log( context );

Compiling code into a script with vm

example.js:

console.log( output )

var vm = require( 'vm' );
var fs = require( 'fs' );

var code = fs.readFileSync( 'example.js' );
console.log( code.toString());

var script = vm.createScript( code );
//script.runInNewContext( { output:"Kick Ass" });    undefined:1:1
script.runInNewContext( { "console":console, "output": "Kick Ass" });

output:

console.log( output )

Kick Ass