Node:Multi-function Calc, Next:Exercises, Previous:Location Tracking Calc, Up:Examples

Multi-Function Calculator: mfcalc

Now that the basics of Bison have been discussed, it is time to move on to a more advanced problem. The above calculators provided only five functions, +, -, *, / and ^. It would be nice to have a calculator that provides other mathematical functions such as sin, cos, etc.

It is easy to add new operators to the infix calculator as long as they are only single-character literals. The lexical analyzer yylex passes back all nonnumber characters as tokens, so new grammar rules suffice for adding a new operator. But we want something more flexible: built-in functions whose syntax has this form:

function_name (argument)

At the same time, we will add memory to the calculator, by allowing you to create named variables, store values in them, and use them later. Here is a sample session with the multi-function calculator:

$ mfcalc
pi = 3.141592653589
3.1415926536
sin(pi)
0.0000000000
alpha = beta1 = 2.3
2.3000000000
alpha
2.3000000000
ln(alpha)
0.8329091229
exp(ln(beta1))
2.3000000000
$

Note that multiple assignment and nested function calls are permitted.

• Decl: Bison declarations for multi-function calculator.
• Rules: Grammar rules for the calculator.
• Symtab: Symbol table management subroutines.