Simple expressions
A cornerstone of a programming language is the ability to compute expressions. We will start here with arithmetic expressions, just to take the concept. An expression consists of a sequence of 'tokens' that show the application of operators to data component. Each expression has a number, which may be computed recursively by evaluating primitive expressions, and then using standard principles to combine their values to get new variables. Numerals, such -3.7 as or 6 are expressions, whose numbers are numeric constants. Their numeric values can be integers, within some range dictated by the programming language, or ?oating point variables. Floating point variables are used to represent non-integer values, but they are not related, in many important types, from the real numbers. There are in?nitely many real numbers within a ?nite difference, but only finite various ?oating-point numbers exist at all. In fact, the normal laws of real arithmetic (transitivity, associativity, etc.) are created in ?oating-point arithmetic, because the results of any provided sub-computation may not be representable in the given number of bits.
We will explain the calculation of expressions in Python by showing short transcripts of interactive sessions with the Python shell : the shell is a computer program that
- Prompts the user for a relation, by typing »>,
- Reads what the user types in, and changes it into a set of tokens,
- Parses the tokens into a data structure showing the syntax of the expression,
- Computes the parsed expression using an interpreter, and
- Prints out the resulting value
So, for example, we might have this interaction with Python:
>>> 2 + 3
5
>>> (3 * 8) - 2
22
>>> ((3 * 8) - 2) / 11
2
>>> 2.0
2.0
>>> 0.1
0.10000000000000001
>>> 1.0 / 3.0
0.33333333333333331
>>> 1 / 3
0
There are a couple of things to look here. First, we can look how ?oating point values only approximately represent real numbers: when we write in 0.1, the closest Python can take it in ?oating point is 0.100000000000001. The end interaction is particularly troubling: it seems like the value of the expression 1 / 3 should be something like 0.3333. However, in Python, if both registers to the / operator are integer number, then it will operate an integer division.
These expressions can be arbitrarily deeply nested combinations of primitives. The laws used for calculation are essentially the same as the ones you learned in school; the interpreter proceeds by applying the operations in precedence order13, calculating sub-expressions to get new variables, and then calculating the expressions those values takes in, until in one value results.