NAME
    Math::Expression::Evaluator - parses, compiles and evaluates mathematic
    expressions

SYNOPSIS
        use Math::Expression::Evaluator;
        my $m = new Math::Expression::Evaluator;

        print $m->parse("a = 12; a*3")->val(), "\n";
        # prints 36
        print $m->parse("2^(a/3)")->val(), "\n";
        # prints 8 (ie 2**3)
        print $m->parse("a / b")->val({ b => 6 }), "\n";
        # prints 36
        print $m->parse("log2(16)")->val(), "\n";
        # prints 4

        # if you care about speed
        my $func = $m->parse('2 + (4 * b)')->compiled;
        for (0 .. 100){
            print $func->({b => $_}), "\n";
        }

DESCRIPTION
    Math::Expression::Evaluator is a parser, compiler and interpreter for
    mathematical expressions. It can handle normal arithmetics (includings
    powers ^), builtin functions like sin() and variables.

    Multiplication "*", division "/" and modulo "%" have the same
    precedence, and are evaluated left to right. The modulo operation
    follows the standard perl semantics, that is is the arguments are castet
    to integer before preforming the modulo operation.

    Multiple exressions can be seperated by whitespaces or by semicolons
    ';'. In case of multiple expressions the value of the last expression is
    returned.

    Variables can be assigned with a single '=' sign, their name has to
    start with a alphabetic character or underscore "[a-zA-Z_]", and may
    contain alphabetic characters, digits and underscores.

    Values for variables can also be provided as a hash ref as a parameter
    to val(). In case of collision the explicitly provided value is used:

       $m->parse("a = 2; a")->val({a => 1});

    will return 1, not 2.

    The following builtin functions are supported atm:

    *   trignometric functions: sin, cos, tan

    *   inverse trigonomic functions: asin, acos, atan

    *   Square root: sqrt

    *   exponentials: exp, sinh, cosh

    *   logarithms: log, log2, log10

    *   constants: pi() (you need the parenthesis to distinguish it from the
        variable pi)

    *   rounding: ceil(), floor()

    *   other: theta (theta(x) = 1 for x > 0, theta(x) = 0 for x < 0)

METHODS
    new
      generates a new MathExpr object. accepts an optional argument, a hash
      ref that contains configurations. If this hash sets force_semicolon to
      true, expressions have to be separated by a semicolon ';'.

    parse
      Takes a string as argument, and generates an Abstract Syntax Tree(AST)
      that is stored internally.

      Returns a reference to the object, so that method calls can be
      chained:

          print MathExpr->new->parse("1+2")->val;

      Parse failures cause this method to die with a stack trace.

    compiled
      Returns an anonymous function that is a compiled version of the
      current expression. It is much faster to execute than the other
      methods, but its error messages aren't as informative (instead of
      complaining about a non-existing variable it dies with "Use of
      uninitialized value in...").

      Note that variables are not persistent between calls to compiled
      functions (and it wouldn't make sense anyway, because such a function
      corresponds always to exactly one expression, not many as a MEE
      object).

      Variables that were stored at the time when "compiled()" is called are
      availble in the compiled function, though.

    val
      Executes the AST generated by parse(), and returns the number that the
      expression is evaluated to. It accepts an optional hash reference that
      contain values for variables:

          my $m = new MathExpr;
          $m->parse("(x - 1) / (x + 1)");
          foreach (0 .. 10) {
              print $_, "\t", $m->val({x => $_}), "\n";
          }

    optimize
      Optimizes the internal AST, so that subsequent calls to "val()" will
      be a bit faster. See "Math::Expression::Evaluator::Optimizer" for
      performance considerations and informations on the implemented
      optimizations.

      But note that a call to "optimize()" only pays off if you call "val()"
      multiple times.

    variables
      "variables()" returns a list of variables that are used in the
      expression.

    ast_size
      "ast_size" returns an integer which gives a crude measure of the
      logical size of the expression. Note that this value isn't guarantueed
      to be stable across multiple versions of this module. It is mainly
      intended for testing.

SPEED
    MEE isn't as fast as perl, because it is built on top of perl.

    If you execute an expression multiple times, it pays off to either
    optimize it first, or (even better) compile it to a pure perl function.

                       Rate  no_optimize     optimize opt_compiled     compiled
        no_optimize  83.9/s           --         -44%         -82%         -83%
        optimize      150/s          78%           --         -68%         -69%
        opt_compiled  472/s         463%         215%           --          -4%
        compiled      490/s         485%         227%           4%           --

    This shows the time for 200 evaluations of "2+a+5+(3+4)" (with MEE
    0.0.5). As you can see, the non-optimized version is painfully slow,
    optimization nearly doubles the execution speed. The compiled and the
    optimized-and-then-compiled versions are both much faster.

    With this example expression the optimization prior to compilation pays
    off if you evaluate it more than 1000 times. But even if you call it
    "10**5" times the optimized and compiled version is only 3% faster than
    the directly compiled one (mostly due to perl's overhead for method
    calls).

    So to summarize you should compile your expresions, and if you have
    really many iterations it might pay off to optimize it first (or to
    write your program in C instead ;-).

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
    *   Modulo operator produces an unnecessary big AST, making it
        relatively slow

INTERNALS
    The AST can be accessed as "$obj-"{ast}>. Its structure is described in
    Math::Expression::Evaluator::Parser (or you can use Data::Dumper to
    figure it out for yourself).

SEE ALSO
    Math::Expression also evaluates mathematical expressions, but also
    handles string operations.

    If you want to do symbolic (aka algebraic) transformations,
    Math::Symbolic will fit your needs.

LICENSE
    This module is free software. You may use, redistribute and modify it
    under the same terms as perl itself.

AUTHOR
    Moritz Lenz, <http://moritz.faui2k3.org/>, moritz@faui2k3.org

DEVELOPMENT
    You can obtain the latest development version via subversion:

        svn co https://faui2k3.org/svn/moritz/cpan/Math-Expression-Evaluator/

