Is there a way in Ruby/Rails to execute code that is in a string?

Question

So I have a database of different code samples (read snippets). The code samples are created by users. Is there a way in Rails to execute it?

So for example I have

Answer 1

There is also another approach which you can use if you have a very limited use case or to limit the use cases.

I had to use this approach to allow users to dynamically specify relative times e.g.3.months.ago

I used a regex to sanitize the input from the users like so

PERMITTED_OPERATIONS = /^\{\%([1-9]\.(day|year|month|hour|minute)(s\.|\.)ago|Time\.now)\%\}$/
def permit?(operation)
  return !PERMITTED_OPERATIONS.match(operation.to_s).nil?
end

You could extend the regex to allow for from_now as well or create an array of regexes for permitted operations and loop over it.

Would welcome any comments on this approach.