After Effects Expressions test tool?

[al404]

I'm a web developer, i know javascript and I need to help a person on AE expressions

he has C6 version

I would like to know if is available some sort of tool to test the code without AE or if is available a free limited software just for this kind of test?

Does Expressions language has major changes across versions?

Any way to output object and variables like an alert / console.log?

What we need to do is to open a JSON and assign values in son to AE variables

Thanks

[Mathias Moehl · Accepted solution]

I would like to know if is available some sort of tool to test the code without AE or if is available a free limited software just for this kind of test?    

no, I don't think so

Does Expressions language has major changes across versions?     

some additional functions have been added over time (for example access to layer bounds in CC 2014,  After Effects CC 2014.2 (13.2): what’s new and changed in this update | Creative Cloud blog by Adobe ) but the core functionality didn't change.

Any way to output object and variables like an alert / console.log?   

No, this is a very weak point of expressions. The only thing you can see from them is the end value they produce on the property that they are applied to. Sometimes it is useful to apply an expression to the sourceText property of a text layer. That way this result value can at least be a text (for example containing debug output) instead of just a number.