I would like to know how to do some lower-level thing in C++ that will allow me to do some "wacky" math operations. Specifically my two questions are:
1) How can I define my own math symbol that the compiler will be able to recognizes in my code. In other words, I'm not looking to parse a string from a user, but rather have the compiler recognize this as a new math operation.
ex: 3 {+} 4 will actually do 3 – 4 etc.
2) How can I define a custom number from an ASCII symbol. For example, define the symbol # to be recognized by the compiler as 18 (i.e. 00010010 in binary).
ex: 18 {+} # = 18 - 18 = 0
If possible, I would like to be able to do the above two things at the compiler lever. Solutions in C++, Java, C, Python, and Objective-C are fine. Just let me know what language your solution is in. Thanks! :)
I said in my comment that this would imply macros in C++; if what you want is not much more complicated than what you show, it should do the trick. Defining operators as macros should work for simple find/replace cases, but it may not be well suited for complex expressions and certain symbols.
Off my head, I think what you want is feasible in Haskell by using infix functions as operators, but it may not be straight-forward for a beginner. Take a look at Lyah and search for infixr
. You need a basic knowledge of Haskell though.
Edit with Zeta example, you can run it in ghci
:
(<+>) = (-) -- operator definition
(<*>) = (/)
answer = 42
answer <+> 12 -- prints 30
answer <*> 7 -- prints 6.0
You can wrap the types into a class, then overload the operators. I came up with a minimal example for "wacky" addition (+
becomes -
). But if you want to use PODs you have to use the preprocessor, there is no other way.
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
template<typename T>
class wacky
{
T val_;
public:
wacky(T val = {}): val_(val){};
// let's define a conversion operator
template<typename S>
operator S (){return val_;}
// we don't need asignment operator and copy ctors
// stream operators
friend ostream& operator<<(ostream& os, const wacky& rhs)
{
return os << rhs.val_;
}
// the += operator
wacky& operator+=(const wacky& rhs)
{
val_ -= rhs.val_; // wacky!
return *this;
}
// and the wacky operator+
friend wacky operator+(wacky lhs, const wacky& rhs)
{
return lhs+=rhs;
}
};
int main()
{
wacky<int> a,b;
a = 10;
b = 15;
// a and b behave now like PODs
// implicit conversions work etc
double wacky_sum = a + b;
cout << wacky_sum << endl; // -5
}