Math::SymbolicX::Calculator::Interface - Miscallaneous routines for interfaces

Do not use this in your scripts. Use one of the ::Interface::Foo classes.

This is very much an internal class.

This module is a base class for interfaces to Math::SymbolicX::Calculator. It is not an interface by itself. It doesn't even define stubs for all methods of an interface and as such isn't an interface definition for Calculator::Interfaces. Instead, it contains various miscellaneous methods which may be of use to classes which actually implement interfaces.

These methods parse commands of a somewhat generic syntax.

When defining the form of the accepted input strings below, I'll be using certain variables:

  $SYMBOL         => An identifier matching /[A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9_]*/
  $FORMULA        => String that can be parsed as a Math::Symbolic tree
  $PATTERN        => String that can be parsed as a
                     Math::Symbolic::Custom::Transformation. (*)
  $REPLACEMENT    => String that can be parsed as the replacement part
                     of a Math::Symbolic::Custom::Transformation (*).
  $TRANSFORMATION => String that can be parsed as a transformation in
                     the calculator context. (*) This means it has the
                     following form: $PATTERN -> $REPLACEMENT
  $GROUP          => A group of transformations. Grouping is done in
                     []-braces and the group elements are chained with
                     one of &, |, or ",". Form: [ $x & $x & .... ]
                     (Same for | or , but not mixed!)
                     $x is either another $GROUP, a $TRANSFORMATION
                     or a $SYMBOL in case of the latter, the symbol
                     table of the calculator is accessed to map the
                     $SYMBOL to a $TRANSFORMATION.
                     The ultimate result of parsing such a thing is a
                     Math::Symbolic::Custom::Transformation::Group
                     object (**).

(*) $PATTERNs, $REPLACEMENTs and $TRANSFORMATIONs may contain some special syntax. Instead of the TREE_foo, VAR_foo, and CONST_foo special variables: You can write ?foo, $foo and !foo respectively.

(**) Math::Symbolic::Custom::Transformation::Group objects are also Math::Symbolic::Custom::Transformations.

If errors occurr, these methods call the error() method with a description and then return the empty list.

If these methods require access to certain attributes of the interface objects, this is mentioned in the docs.

Parses an expression of one of the forms

  $SYMBOL = $FORMULA
  $SYMBOL = $TRANSFORMATION
  $SYMBOL = $GROUP

Returns an instance of Math::SymbolicX::Calculator::Command::Assignment which assigns either a formula or a transformation(-group) when executed.

Uses $self-calc()> and expects it to return the Calculator object. Uses the _parse_trafo_group method.

This method parses expressions of the form

  $SYMBOL =~ $SYMBOL2
  $SYMBOL =~ $TRANSFORMATION
  $SYMBOL =~ $GROUP

or

  $SYMBOL =~~ $SYMBOL2 (*)
  ... and so on ...

(*) The =~ operator stands for recursive application of the transformation whereas the =~~ operator stands for shallow application.

These expressions generally stand for the application of the transformation given on the right to the function $SYMBOL stands for. This method returns a Math::SymbolicX::Calculator::Command::Transformation object on success or calls the error() method and returns an empty list on failure.

This methods expects $self-calc()> to return the Calculator object. It also uses the _parse_trafo_group method.

Parses a string of the form:

    $SYMBOL
    $GROUP
    $TRANSFORMATION

In case of $SYMBOL, it accesses the Calculator symbol table to fetch the referenced Transformation. (And throws an error if it's not one.)

Returns a Math::Symbolic::Custom::Transformation object or calls the error() method and returns the empty list on failure.

This method uses Parse::RecDescent. Expects the calc() method to return the Calculator object. Uses the method _parse_simple_transformation.

Parses a string of the form "pattern -> replacement", i.e. a simple $TRANSFORMATION.

Returns a Math::Symbolic::Custom::Transformation object or the empty list on failure.

Math::SymbolicX::Calculator, Math::SymbolicX::Calculator::Interface::Shell

Steffen Müller, <smueller@cpan.org>

Copyright (C) 2006 by Steffen Mueller

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.6 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.