hi ben,
> Does anyone have any experience with embedding Maxima in a script like this?
see http://maxima.sourceforge.net/relatedprojects.shtml
for links to some web interfaces which run maxima.
(if you get Spotter running maxima i'll add it to the list!)
> For example, I want to make sure there isn't any tricky way for users to
> do inappropriate things, like deleting all my files. (OK, since it's going
> through my own parser first, it would probably be hard for them to accomplish
> that anyway, but I'd still be interested in hearing if anyone else has tackled
> the issue of sanitizing input appropriately.) It would also be nice to make
> sure they can't inadvertently send my server spinning off on a computation
> that will eat up 99% of its CPU for the next month :-)
well, there is a more fundamental issue, before worrying about file
system mischief, etc.
maxima has been built with an assumption that there is someone
at the console. it is more or less impossible to guarantee
that a program will run in the absence of console input.
this makes writing interfaces to other programs somewhat involved.
the topic has come up before -- if you're interested try the search box at
http://maxima.sf.net/maximalist.html
or post another message here and i'll try to dig something out.
hth,
robert dodier