View/edit/compile/run Web-based programming environment

Abstract

A Web-based environment has been developed for students to perform C, Java, and shell programming. The environment runs on a Unix server, uses password authentication, and provides each student with separate project subdirectories that cannot be seen by other students. Options are available to view fiks, edit source code, compile, run, run in debug mode, run with output plotted and displayed as a GIF image, display C preprocessor output, display generated assembly code, display optimized assembly code, and insert compiler error messages as comments into the source code. The environment is implemented using a combination of C code, peri, and shell scripts, and is freely available (open source). The source code of the environment itself can be used as examples in an advanced Unix/C programming or security course. The environment has been used successfully in both sophomore and senior-level C programming courses, a graduate Unix/C programming course (C and shell programming), and a senior/graduate computer communications security course (Java programming).