What are codepad.org's Perl runner limitations?

Question

Sometimes I see people use http://codepad.org as a way to quickly run/test their Perl snippets (it supports doing that with a wide variety of languages, from C to Scheme to Perl).

It's pretty obvious that there must be some limitations as to what code/features can be tested with codepad - does anyone know what those limitations are for Perl runner?

I'll get the ball rolling on my own observation: not every CPAN module is available :(

Answer 1

Mostly based on their "about" page:

• codepad only supports Perl 5.8.0

• Presumably, like any Perl install, not every module (CPAN or otherwise) is present.

  • As a specific example, List::MoreUtils is missing.

  • As a sub-limitation, they seem to run on Linux. So any Windows specific modules would certainly be out.

  • It's in a chroot jail with system calls restrictions. Among other things this seems to prevent file creation (my snippets creating files in a current directory or /tmp both errored out, as well as File::Temp calls)

• codepad code is executed on a virtual machine. Behind firewalls. And buried in a bunker. So certain functionality is probably disabled - especially networking/internet one. The exact "about" quote is:

  • The supervisor processes run on virtual machines, which are firewalled such that they are incapable of making outgoing connections.

  • The machines that run the virtual machines are also heavily firewalled, and restored from their source images periodically.

Answer 2

It's easier to just run Perl code locally. It's easy to install multiple versions of Perl and to track separate module repositories. It's also not hard to run just about any operating system you want in a virtual machine. Why you'd need anyone's else's service to do what you can do better yourself is beyond me.