What situations demand the use of eval() because there are no alternatives?

Question

I know eval should be avoided in JavaScript for speed and security reasons. But in the case of PHP, rarely is security ever mentioned. More often, it\'s your pr

Answer 1

Eval and create_function may allow arbitary code injection. There are a lot of things in PHP that can be used to compromise the security of your application.

We tell kids not to play with knives and matches - but these are useful (if not essential) tools when used correctly. So it is with a lot of PHP's functionality. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with using the functionality as long as you understand exactly what you are doing.

But a discussion of programming languages at such an abstract level is not what StackOverflow is about.

C.