Question

I have a website. I’d like to do the following:

Have an input box that the user can type a java program. Then, they can press “Run” and it spits out standard output. How can I achieve this?

I tried thinking about using exec(“javac $filename”) in php and just compile and run the java program, but that doesn’t seem to be working. Any ideas?

I am trying to make a “learn Java” site, and I need the user to be able to play with code by typing into spaces on my website. I just can’t figure out how to go about running Java using php, html, or things like that.

Answer 1

1. Do not do this! Get people to run an applet or something. In addition to the security implications, your server would also likely grind to a halt.
2. If you ignore (1) just use a proper app server and get people to write their own jsps (make sure caching is turned off). It’s a very easy bit of file IO.