Code execution

One of the main features Structs.sh wishes to push out this year is the visual debugger that takes student’s C code of data structures & algorithm to visualize is to them. The main challenge is in converting that user C code into shapes and lines that aid students in their learning.

Compiling and execution

We should aim for compilation and execution of user code to be

Secure: the server should be able to withstand infinite loops + forkbombs. Also, resources should be fairly allocated (a person shouldn’t be able to hog up server resources with an infinite loop. slowing down everyone else’s experience
Fast: Ideally, it shouldn’t take longer than 5-10 seconds for a visualization to show up

Possible approaches

We may need an API for code execution

This video is a godsend (video about how piston was made, discord bot uses it for code execution): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD4KgwdjmdI&t=660s&ab_channel=EngineerMan

Docker

We can execute programs in a docker container: because the code is executed in an isolated container, malicious code shouldn’t be able to shut down the entire server. Can also set resource limits.

algorithm-visualizer https://github.com/algorithm-visualizer/server/tree/master/src/tracers uses this approach for C/C++ code execution

AWS Lambda

imma be honest i have no clue what this is i’ll maybe look more into it later and update this

WASM