The Controversial Eval Function

Today we’re going to discuss one of those highly-controversial hot topics in Ruby (if there can be such a thing as a “hot topic” in programming languages)–the eval function.

What does eval do? Quite simply, you pass in some Ruby code in a string, and it’ll evaluate it. Observe:

eval "puts 2+2" # => 4
eval "'hello world!'.upcase # => HELLO WORLD

Clearly, this is useful stuff–you can pass in arbitrary code, even assemble your strings on the fly for truly complicated code.

But, eval is a dangerous tool–because it can execute arbitrary code. For example, if you have some code like this:

input = # ... read from some form
eval input
# ...

Some clever script kiddie will send the input system 'rm -rf *', you can kiss your application goodbye. And your family photo-collection. And your MP3 collection. And your hard-drive.

Some people brand eval as an “evil,” “insidious,” “destructive” function. Which is true–it has destructive potential. That’s why you need to sanitize your input. Don’t just send it as-is. Don’t risk it.

On the other hand, eval has a lot of tricky uses for things you might not otherwise be able to do. For example, how would you create a generic “shutdown hook” system for your Ruby application? other programming languages have pointers–in .NET, for example, you can accumulate a collection of pointers, and run those. What can you do in Ruby? You can accumulate a collection of strings to eval!

shutdown_hooks = ["Logger.write 'normal termination'", "Logger.close", "DatabaseConnector.close"]

Voila! You can iterate through them and execute them, just like any set of pointers in other languages.

To recap:

• eval is merely a tool. It can be used, and abused, like any tool.
• Use eval as necessary, but avoid it if possible.
• Sanitize your input! Don’t risk it! Script kiddies abound!

In other programming languages, one of the concerns raised with reflection is that it’s a “heavy” process. How does Ruby stack up? If you know, share it in the comments!

Tags: dangerous code, design, reflection     Posted in Development

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