Evaluating a mathematical expression in a string

Question

eval is evil

eval("__import__('os').remove('important file')") # arbitrary commands
eval("9**9**9**9**9**9**9**9", {'__builtins__': None}) # CPU, memory

Note: even if you use set __builtins__ to None it still might be possible to break out using introspection:

eval('(1).__class__.__bases__[0].__subclasses__()', {'__builtins__': None})

Evaluate arithmetic expression using ast

import ast
import operator as op

# supported operators
operators = {ast.Add: op.add, ast.Sub: op.sub, ast.Mult: op.mul,
             ast.Div: op.truediv, ast.Pow: op.pow, ast.BitXor: op.xor,
             ast.USub: op.neg}

def eval_expr(expr):
    """
    >>> eval_expr('2^6')
    4
    >>> eval_expr('2**6')
    64
    >>> eval_expr('1 + 2*3**(4^5) / (6 + -7)')
    -5.0
    """
    return eval_(ast.parse(expr, mode='eval').body)

def eval_(node):
    if isinstance(node, ast.Num): # <number>
        return node.n
    elif isinstance(node, ast.BinOp): # <left> <operator> <right>
        return operators[type(node.op)](eval_(node.left), eval_(node.right))
    elif isinstance(node, ast.UnaryOp): # <operator> <operand> e.g., -1
        return operators[type(node.op)](eval_(node.operand))
    else:
        raise TypeError(node)

You can easily limit allowed range for each operation or any intermediate result, e.g., to limit input arguments for a**b:

def power(a, b):
    if any(abs(n) > 100 for n in [a, b]):
        raise ValueError((a,b))
    return op.pow(a, b)
operators[ast.Pow] = power

Or to limit magnitude of intermediate results:

import functools

def limit(max_=None):
    """Return decorator that limits allowed returned values."""
    def decorator(func):
        @functools.wraps(func)
        def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
            ret = func(*args, **kwargs)
            try:
                mag = abs(ret)
            except TypeError:
                pass # not applicable
            else:
                if mag > max_:
                    raise ValueError(ret)
            return ret
        return wrapper
    return decorator

eval_ = limit(max_=10**100)(eval_)

Example

>>> evil = "__import__('os').remove('important file')"
>>> eval_expr(evil) #doctest:+IGNORE_EXCEPTION_DETAIL
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
TypeError:
>>> eval_expr("9**9")
387420489
>>> eval_expr("9**9**9**9**9**9**9**9") #doctest:+IGNORE_EXCEPTION_DETAIL
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
ValueError:

Pyparsing can be used to parse mathematical expressions. In particular, fourFn.py shows how to parse basic arithmetic expressions. Below, I've rewrapped fourFn into a numeric parser class for easier reuse.

from __future__ import division
from pyparsing import (Literal, CaselessLiteral, Word, Combine, Group, Optional,
                       ZeroOrMore, Forward, nums, alphas, oneOf)
import math
import operator

__author__ = 'Paul McGuire'
__version__ = '$Revision: 0.0 $'
__date__ = '$Date: 2009-03-20 $'
__source__ = '''http://pyparsing.wikispaces.com/file/view/fourFn.py
http://pyparsing.wikispaces.com/message/view/home/15549426
'''
__note__ = '''
All I've done is rewrap Paul McGuire's fourFn.py as a class, so I can use it
more easily in other places.
'''


class NumericStringParser(object):
    '''
    Most of this code comes from the fourFn.py pyparsing example

    '''

    def pushFirst(self, strg, loc, toks):
        self.exprStack.append(toks[0])

    def pushUMinus(self, strg, loc, toks):
        if toks and toks[0] == '-':
            self.exprStack.append('unary -')

    def __init__(self):
        """
        expop   :: '^'
        multop  :: '*' | '/'
        addop   :: '+' | '-'
        integer :: ['+' | '-'] '0'..'9'+
        atom    :: PI | E | real | fn '(' expr ')' | '(' expr ')'
        factor  :: atom [ expop factor ]*
        term    :: factor [ multop factor ]*
        expr    :: term [ addop term ]*
        """
        point = Literal(".")
        e = CaselessLiteral("E")
        fnumber = Combine(Word("+-" + nums, nums) +
                          Optional(point + Optional(Word(nums))) +
                          Optional(e + Word("+-" + nums, nums)))
        ident = Word(alphas, alphas + nums + "_$")
        plus = Literal("+")
        minus = Literal("-")
        mult = Literal("*")
        div = Literal("/")
        lpar = Literal("(").suppress()
        rpar = Literal(")").suppress()
        addop = plus | minus
        multop = mult | div
        expop = Literal("^")
        pi = CaselessLiteral("PI")
        expr = Forward()
        atom = ((Optional(oneOf("- +")) +
                 (ident + lpar + expr + rpar | pi | e | fnumber).setParseAction(self.pushFirst))
                | Optional(oneOf("- +")) + Group(lpar + expr + rpar)
                ).setParseAction(self.pushUMinus)
        # by defining exponentiation as "atom [ ^ factor ]..." instead of
        # "atom [ ^ atom ]...", we get right-to-left exponents, instead of left-to-right
        # that is, 2^3^2 = 2^(3^2), not (2^3)^2.
        factor = Forward()
        factor << atom + \
            ZeroOrMore((expop + factor).setParseAction(self.pushFirst))
        term = factor + \
            ZeroOrMore((multop + factor).setParseAction(self.pushFirst))
        expr << term + \
            ZeroOrMore((addop + term).setParseAction(self.pushFirst))
        # addop_term = ( addop + term ).setParseAction( self.pushFirst )
        # general_term = term + ZeroOrMore( addop_term ) | OneOrMore( addop_term)
        # expr <<  general_term
        self.bnf = expr
        # map operator symbols to corresponding arithmetic operations
        epsilon = 1e-12
        self.opn = {"+": operator.add,
                    "-": operator.sub,
                    "*": operator.mul,
                    "/": operator.truediv,
                    "^": operator.pow}
        self.fn = {"sin": math.sin,
                   "cos": math.cos,
                   "tan": math.tan,
                   "exp": math.exp,
                   "abs": abs,
                   "trunc": lambda a: int(a),
                   "round": round,
                   "sgn": lambda a: abs(a) > epsilon and cmp(a, 0) or 0}

    def evaluateStack(self, s):
        op = s.pop()
        if op == 'unary -':
            return -self.evaluateStack(s)
        if op in "+-*/^":
            op2 = self.evaluateStack(s)
            op1 = self.evaluateStack(s)
            return self.opn[op](op1, op2)
        elif op == "PI":
            return math.pi  # 3.1415926535
        elif op == "E":
            return math.e  # 2.718281828
        elif op in self.fn:
            return self.fn[op](self.evaluateStack(s))
        elif op[0].isalpha():
            return 0
        else:
            return float(op)

    def eval(self, num_string, parseAll=True):
        self.exprStack = []
        results = self.bnf.parseString(num_string, parseAll)
        val = self.evaluateStack(self.exprStack[:])
        return val

You can use it like this

nsp = NumericStringParser()
result = nsp.eval('2^4')
print(result)
# 16.0

result = nsp.eval('exp(2^4)')
print(result)
# 8886110.520507872

Some safer alternatives to eval() and sympy.sympify().evalf()^*:

• asteval
• numexpr

^*SymPy sympify is also unsafe according to the following warning from the documentation.

Warning: Note that this function uses eval, and thus shouldn’t be used on unsanitized input.

Okay, so the problem with eval is that it can escape its sandbox too easily, even if you get rid of __builtins__. All the methods for escaping the sandbox come down to using getattr or object.__getattribute__ (via the . operator) to obtain a reference to some dangerous object via some allowed object (''.__class__.__bases__[0].__subclasses__ or similar). getattr is eliminated by setting __builtins__ to None. object.__getattribute__ is the difficult one, since it cannot simply be removed, both because object is immutable and because removing it would break everything. However, __getattribute__ is only accessible via the . operator, so purging that from your input is sufficient to ensure eval cannot escape its sandbox.
In processing formulas, the only valid use of a decimal is when it is preceded or followed by [0-9], so we just remove all other instances of ..

import re
inp = re.sub(r"\.(?![0-9])","", inp)
val = eval(inp, {'__builtins__':None})

Note that while python normally treats 1 + 1. as 1 + 1.0, this will remove the trailing . and leave you with 1 + 1. You could add ),, and EOF to the list of things allowed to follow ., but why bother?