As we saw before, a main loop looks like this:
do_setup()
while exit_condition_not_reached:
input = consume_input()
output = evaluate_input(input)
print output
When we consume input from the keyboard, this is a special type of main loop called a 'REPL', a read-eval-print-loop.
In exercise 1, we built a very simple REPL that asked for a single number from the user.
In exercise 2, we provided a REPL for you that implemented a basic calculator.
In this exercise, you will re-implement the same REPL from scratch. To do this, you will need to tokenize a string.
Tokenizing a string is the process of taking a string and breaking it up into its constituent parts as a list. Consider the following string:
ocean_animals = "shark,squid,tuna,flounder"
A natural tokenization would be the following array:
["shark", "squid", "tuna", "flounder"]
To do this, we use the string split method:
ocean_animals.split(",")
=> ["shark", "squid", "tuna", "flounder"]
When we do this, we say we've tokenized the original string on commas.
Now consider the following string as read from the keyboard:
input = "pow 3 5"
If we tokenize on spaces, we get the following list:
tokens = input.split(" ")
# tokens = ["pow", "3", "5"]
Now, we can take the first token, token[0], and make a decision about what to do with the remaining tokens. For example:
if tokens[0] is equal to "pow":
call the power function with the other two tokens
The psuedocode for our REPL will look like this:
# No setup
repeat forever:
read input
tokenize input
if the first token is 'q', quit
otherwise decide which math function to call based on the tokens we read
Resources:
* http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ex3.html
* http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ex18.html
* http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ex19.html
* http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ex21.html
* http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ex29.html
* http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ex30.html
* http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ex31.html
* http://www.learnpython.org/page/Variables%20and%20Types
* http://www.learnpython.org/page/Functions
* http://docs.python.org/library/functions.html#int
Concepts required: * functions * arithmetic * return values * string parsing * conditionals
Implement a REPL for a calculator in a file named 'calculator.py'. Your calculator will use the interface from the previous exercise:
In the file arithmetic.py, these function signatures are required
add(int, int) -> int
Returns the sum of the two input integers
subtract(int, int) -> int
Returns the second number subtracted from the first
multiply(int, int) -> int
Multiplies the two inputs together
divide(int, int) -> float
Divides the first input by the second, returning a floating point
square(int) -> int
Returns the square of the input
cube(int) -> int
Returns the cube of the input
power(int, int) -> int
Raises the first integer to the power of the second integer and returns the value.
mod(int, int) -> int
Returns the remainder when the first integer is divided by the second integer.
A sample session of the calculator looks like this: Meringue:math chriszf$ python calculator.py > + 1 2 3 > - 10 5 5 > * 2 3 6 > / 6 2 3.000000 > square 2 4 > cube 3 27 > pow 2 5 32 > mod 10 3 1 > q Meringue:math chriszf$
We have provided a sample arithmetic.py with dummy stubs that do the wrong thing. When you've completed your REPL, copy your completed arithmetic.py from the previous exercise to the current directory and replace our stubs.