How can a PHP developer ensure that Perl scripts are executed safely and securely within their application?
To ensure that Perl scripts are executed safely and securely within a PHP application, a developer should sanitize user input to prevent injection attacks, validate input data to ensure it meets expected criteria, and use proper permissions to restrict access to sensitive files. Additionally, using escapeshellarg() function can help prevent shell injection attacks when passing arguments to the Perl script.
// Sanitize user input
$perl_script = escapeshellarg($user_input);
// Validate input data
if (/* validate user input */) {
// Execute Perl script with proper permissions
exec("perl $perl_script", $output);
}