Adding Interpreter design pattern (#211)

Author: fade2black

SUMMARY.md

@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@
     - [Object-Based APIs](./patterns/ffi-export.md)
     - [Type Consolidation into Wrappers](./patterns/ffi-wrappers.md)
   - [Fold](./patterns/fold.md)
+  - [Interpreter](./patterns/interpreter.md)
   - [Newtype](./patterns/newtype.md)
   - [RAII Guards](./patterns/RAII.md)
   - [Prefer Small Crates](./patterns/small-crates.md)

patterns/interpreter.md

@@ -0,0 +1,147 @@
+# Interpreter
+
+## Description
+
+If a problem occurs very often and requires long and repetitive steps to solve
+it, then the problem instances might be expressed in a simple language and an
+interpreter object could solve it by interpreting the sentences written in this
+simple language.
+
+Basically, for any kind of problems we define:
+
+- a [domain specific language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain-specific_language),
+- a grammar for this language,
+- an interpreter that solves the problem instances.
+
+## Motivation
+
+Our goal is to translate simple mathematical expressions into postfix expressions
+(or [Reverse Polish notation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Polish_notation))
+For simplicity, our expressions consist of ten digits `0`, ..., `9` and two
+operations `+`, `-`. For example, the expression `2 + 4` is translated into
+`2 4  +`.
+
+## Context Free Grammar for our problem
+
+Our task is translate infix expressions into postfix ones. Let's define a context
+free grammar for a set of infix expressions over `0`, ..., `9`, `+`, and `-`,
+where:
+
+- terminal symbols: `0`, ..., `9`, `+`, `-`
+- non-terminal symbols: `exp`, `term`
+- start symbol is `exp`
+- and the following are production rules
+
+```ignore
+exp -> exp + term
+exp -> exp - term
+exp -> term
+term -> 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
+```
+
+__NOTE:__ This grammar should be further transformed depending on what we are going
+to do with it. For example, we might need to remove left recursion. For more
+details please see [Compilers: Principles,Techniques, and Tools
+](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compilers:_Principles,_Techniques,_and_Tools)
+(aka Dragon Book).
+
+## Solution
+
+We simply implement a recursive descent parser. For simplicity's sake, the code
+panics when an expression is syntactically wrong (for example `2-34` or `2+5-`
+are wrong according to the grammar definition).
+
+```rust
+pub struct Interpreter<'a> {
+    it: std::str::Chars<'a>,
+}
+
+impl<'a> Interpreter<'a> {
+
+    pub fn new(infix: &'a str) -> Self {
+        Self { it: infix.chars() }
+    }
+
+    fn next_char(&mut self) -> Option<char> {
+        self.it.next()
+    }
+
+    pub fn interpret(&mut self, out: &mut String) {
+        self.term(out);
+
+        while let Some(op) = self.next_char() {
+            if op == '+' || op == '-' {
+                self.term(out);
+                out.push(op);
+            } else {
+                panic!("Unexpected symbol '{}'", op);
+            }
+        }
+    }
+
+    fn term(&mut self, out: &mut String) {
+        match self.next_char() {
+            Some(ch) if ch.is_digit(10) => out.push(ch),
+            Some(ch) => panic!("Unexpected symbol '{}'", ch),
+            None => panic!("Unexpected end of string"),
+        }
+    }
+}
+
+pub fn main() {
+    let mut intr = Interpreter::new("2+3");
+    let mut postfix = String::new();
+    intr.interpret(&mut postfix);
+    assert_eq!(postfix, "23+");
+
+    intr = Interpreter::new("1-2+3-4");
+    postfix.clear();
+    intr.interpret(&mut postfix);
+    assert_eq!(postfix, "12-3+4-");
+}
+```
+
+## Discussion
+
+There may be a wrong perception that the Interpreter design pattern is about design
+grammars for formal languages and implementation of parsers for these grammars.
+In fact, this pattern is about expressing problem instances in a more specific
+way and implementing functions/classes/structs that solve these problem instances.
+Rust language has `macro_rules!` that allow to define special syntax and rules
+on how to expand this syntax into source code.
+
+In the following example we create a simple `macro_rules!` that computes
+[Euclidean length](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_distance) of `n`
+dimensional vectors. Writing `norm!(x,1,2)` might be easier to express and more
+efficient than packing `x,1,2` into a `Vec` and calling a function computing
+the length.
+
+```rust
+macro_rules! norm {
+    ($($element:expr),*) => {
+        {
+            let mut n = 0.0;
+            $(
+                n += ($element as f64)*($element as f64);
+            )*
+            n.sqrt()
+        }
+    };
+}
+
+fn main() {
+    let x = -3f64;
+    let y = 4f64;
+
+    assert_eq!(3f64, norm!(x));
+    assert_eq!(5f64, norm!(x, y));
+    assert_eq!(0f64, norm!(0, 0, 0)); 
+    assert_eq!(1f64, norm!(0.5, -0.5, 0.5, -0.5));
+}
+```
+
+## See also
+
+- [Interpreter pattern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreter_pattern)
+- [Context free grammar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context-free_grammar)
+- [macro_rules!](https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/macros.html)