How would you go about making an online IRB that runs in the browser

Question

Im wondering how to go about creating an online IRB that runs in the browser. I have an idea to include an irb console in my blog and give the option for users to send code blocks in my tutorials directly into the irb console so they can play around with it.

_Why did this previously, but of course it is gone now: Cached Version

Answer 1

That's insanely dangerous. Don't do this. You expose your system to all sorts of vulnerabilities when you allow users to execute arbitrary Ruby code.

Anyway there are some client-side Ruby implementations in JavaScript/Flash. Take a look at HotRuby.

Answer 2

I would suspect you run Ruby in a sandbox to prevent "bad" commands being run.

Answer 3

Well, you could use the sandbox that _why created. But you'll need to be able to patch your ruby and it seems to only work on ruby 1.8.5 .

Answer 4

TryRuby is still available here, with source code at GitHub.

UPDATE: That TryRuby implementation isn't actually working at the moment, apparently due to security concerns. But hopefully you'll be able to learn something from the code.