Discussion on: Pratt Parsing

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How would I manage to get nested parentheses to work

Good question! First, we define the BP of ")" to be a low number that will always be guaranteed to stop the current parse-run. For example:

bp(")") = 0

Next, we define the NUD of "(" to read the next expression, and then eat the closing ")":

nud("(") => {
  const e = expr(0);
  lexer.expect(")");
  return e;
}

For a fully working example, I have implemented this in my JavaScript calculator expression evaluator:

github.com/jrop/pratt-calculator/b...

KryptoCrash • Apr 13 '19

That's pretty nice! I actually got around with just setting a var pLayer to 0. Incrementing it for every open parenthese and decrementing it for every closing parenthese. Then just applied a bias of pLayer*3 to the operator precedence. Would this run in faster time?

Jonathan Apodaca • Apr 15 '19

It's hard to say without running some performance benchmarks.