Python code editable/viewable by user

[dsavitsk]

I am looking for advice from someone who may have tried this before...or who
thinks at least that it is not such a bad idea.
i am working on a program where a user is presented a Tkinter interface.
They push a button, some stuff happens.  The tricky part (i think) is that i
want some of the even handler code to be in a text box where the user can
edit it.

esentially the program gets a long string from another source.  it then must
parse it and place various parts into various database fields. where the
string is parsed, and into what fields changes every time.

either the user has to edit the source then run the program, or run the
program and edit the source while running.  since the end users will not
necessarilly know any more python than what i tell them, i would rather hide
as much complexity as possable.  (somehow in my mind only presenting the
ADO/OLEDB part counts as hiding th complexity...hmm)

esentially this is a recursive program editing itself or python being its
own scripting language.  i would also like to save their changes, but this
seems to add an extra layer of trickyness. (perhaps just the editable stuff
will be in a separate text file that is imported)

any help would be appreciated. thanks.

doug