Parsing string as code in Unity3D (C#)

Question

So I want to build this little code sandbox in Unity, which would allow me to teach students the basics of algorithmics and coding.

The idea would be for them to enter (very basic) code in a text box or something of the kind, and to observe the effects of their code onto objects present in a Unity scene. I'm pretty sure this has been done a million times, but I'd love to try my hand at this. The rub is, I have no idea where to start...

I guess the idea is that the string would be compiled into code & executed at runtime, at the press of a button.

I've read about numerous other questions on SO, and have come up with very diverse solutions such as using a C# parser, reflection, expression trees, CodeDom, etc.

From what I understood of all these (i.e., not much), CodeDom seemed more appropriate, but then I read that it only ran inside of Visual Studio and generated errors in public builds. So does that mean that this is going to be a problem within Unity3D (as it is based on Mono?)

Thank you for your help,

Answer 1

In the following case, you look for an existing method of the given name on the same script (you can easily convert it to another script or any script in the assembly (not recommended though)):

string actionStr = inputField.text;
Type t = this.GetType();
MethodInfo mi = t.GetMethod(actionStr);
if(mi == null)
{
     ErrorMethod(actionStr + " method could not be found");
}else
{
    mi.Invoke(this);
}

Another way would be to store all the methods in a dictionary (faster):

Dictionary<string, Action>dict = null;
void Start()
{
      this.dict = new Dictionary<string, Action>();
      this.dict.Add("dosomething", DoSomething);
}
void DoSomething(){}

public void OnActionCall(string inputFieldStr)
{
    string str = inputFieldStr.ToLower();
    if(this.dict.Contains(str) == false)
    { 
         ErrorMethod(actionStr + " method could not be found");
         return; 
    }
    this.dict[str]();
}