Re: Turing-incomplete Lua?

[Jeff Koftinoff <jeffk@...>]

On 30-Nov-04, at 8:55 PM, Matt Hellige wrote:

> Presumably you don't want to allow configuration files to cause
> infinite loops... You could probably address that with a simple
> timeout in most cases, and use sandboxing for the stuff you mention.
>
> Matt

But if you made the mini-lua grammar simple enough you could guarantee 
that there would be no possibility of infinite loops.  A timeout is 
problematic in many ways! Please don't do things like that.

If you just restrict the grammar so that all loops have a fixed repeat 
count (non-variable) and no recursive function definitions are allowed 
then you don't need a sandbox and you don't need problematic 
halt-sensing and you can be guaranteed that the config file will never 
halt your process.  I believe a system like this would be very very 
useful.

Jeff

--
Jeff Koftinoff <jeffk@jdkoftinoff.com>
www.jdkoftinoff.com

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