How do I execute a string containing Python code in Python?

Question

How do I execute a string containing Python code in Python?

Answer 1

In the example a string is executed as code using the exec function.

import sys
import StringIO

# create file-like string to capture output
codeOut = StringIO.StringIO()
codeErr = StringIO.StringIO()

code = """
def f(x):
    x = x + 1
    return x

print 'This is my output.'
"""

# capture output and errors
sys.stdout = codeOut
sys.stderr = codeErr

exec code

# restore stdout and stderr
sys.stdout = sys.__stdout__
sys.stderr = sys.__stderr__

print f(4)

s = codeErr.getvalue()

print "error:\n%s\n" % s

s = codeOut.getvalue()

print "output:\n%s" % s

codeOut.close()
codeErr.close()

Answer 2

Use eval.

Answer 3

Ok .. I know this isn't exactly an answer, but possibly a note for people looking at this as I was. I wanted to execute specific code for different users/customers but also wanted to avoid the exec/eval. I initially looked to storing the code in a database for each user and doing the above.

I ended up creating the files on the file system within a 'customer_filters' folder and using the 'imp' module, if no filter applied for that customer, it just carried on

import imp


def get_customer_module(customerName='default', name='filter'):
    lm = None
    try:
        module_name = customerName+"_"+name;
        m = imp.find_module(module_name, ['customer_filters'])
        lm = imp.load_module(module_name, m[0], m[1], m[2])
    except:
        ''
        #ignore, if no module is found, 
    return lm

m = get_customer_module(customerName, "filter")
if m is not None:
    m.apply_address_filter(myobj)

so customerName = "jj" would execute apply_address_filter from the customer_filters\jj_filter.py file

Answer 4

eval and exec are the correct solution, and they can be used in a safer manner.

As discussed in Python's reference manual and clearly explained in this tutorial, the eval and exec functions take two extra parameters that allow a user to specify what global and local functions and variables are available.

For example:

public_variable = 10

private_variable = 2

def public_function():
    return "public information"

def private_function():
    return "super sensitive information"

# make a list of safe functions
safe_list = ['public_variable', 'public_function']
safe_dict = dict([ (k, locals().get(k, None)) for k in safe_list ])
# add any needed builtins back in
safe_dict['len'] = len

>>> eval("public_variable+2", {"__builtins__" : None }, safe_dict)
12

>>> eval("private_variable+2", {"__builtins__" : None }, safe_dict)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'private_variable' is not defined

>>> exec("print \"'%s' has %i characters\" % (public_function(), len(public_function()))", {"__builtins__" : None}, safe_dict)
'public information' has 18 characters

>>> exec("print \"'%s' has %i characters\" % (private_function(), len(private_function()))", {"__builtins__" : None}, safe_dict)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'private_function' is not defined

In essence you are defining the namespace in which the code will be executed.

Answer 5

I tried quite a few things, but the only thing that work was the following:

temp_dict = {}
exec("temp_dict['val'] = 10") 
print(temp_dict['val'])

output:

10

Answer 6

The most logical solution would be to use the built-in eval() function .Another solution is to write that string to a temporary python file and execute it.