PodballScripting

Scripting

This page is about using scripting technologies to provide the Pod control functions instead of native DLLs.

Advantages of scripting:

• Scripts are platform independent by nature.
• Scripts can be run in a sandbox, thus malicious or bugged scripts can do less harm to the host system.
• Easier and faster development. Thus more developers to develop in scripting languages?

Disadvantages of scripting:

• By default, a script is plain text. Since this is a programming contest, we need to find a way of hiding the code between different developers. Otherwise cheating would be too easy.

Candidates

See also Comparison of embeddable scripting languages.

List of scripting language candidates.

Common requirements:

• Must be embeddable in C/C++.
• Several instances of the same script must be able to run at once. Requires a mechanism to switch contexts.
• It should be possible to run the script in a sandbox environment, with only minimum library support.
• There must be a mechanism to compile or obfuscate scripts so they're don't need to be distributed in plain text.

Javascript

To be embedded via the Google V8 Javascript engine:

• ​http://code.google.com/p/v8/
• ​http://code.google.com/p/cproxyv8/

See also:

• ​http://www.commonjs.org/impl/

Meets requirements?

• Embeddable: OK.
• Context management: OK.
• Sandbox?
• Distribution?

Lua

• ​http://www.lua.org/manual/5.1/manual.html#3
• ​http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-embed-lua/
• ​http://heavycoder.com/tutorials/lua_embed.php
• ​http://code.google.com/p/lua-vec/ -- A Lua mod for fast vectors

Meets requirements?

• Embeddable: OK.
• Context management: OK. Different independent Lua states can be instantiated with lua_State *L = lua_open();
• Sandbox: OK. Open all or only part of the standard libs.

(see also ​http://stackoverflow.com/questions/966162/best-way-to-omit-lua-standard-libraries)

• Distribution: OK. Lua scripts can be compiled to byte code.

Update 2018-03-15: As of version 2.2, Lua has been fully imtegrated as a scripting language!

Python

• ​http://docs.python.org/extending/embedding.html
• ​http://docs.python.org/c-api/
• ​http://davidf.sjsoft.com/mirrors/mcmillan-inc/embed.html
• ​http://www.ragestorm.net/tutorial?id=21
• ​http://www.codesampler.com/python.htm
• ​http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8497
• ​http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cpp/embedpython_1.aspx

Meets requirements?

• Embeddable: OK.
• Context management? To check. Different "Threads" can be craeted for Python interpreter.
• Sandbox?
• Distribution? Python scripts can be compiled.

Last modified 4 years ago Last modified on 07/23/10 15:24:04