What
====
``py.js`` is a parser and evaluator of Python expressions, written in
pure javascript.
``py.js`` is not intended to implement a full Python interpreter
(although it could be used for such an effort later on), its
specification document is the `Python 2.7 Expressions spec
<http://docs.python.org/reference/expressions.html>`_ (along with the
lexical analysis part).
Why
===
Originally, to learn about Pratt parsers (which are very, very good at
parsing expressions with lots of infix or mixfix symbols). The
evaluator part came because "why not" and because I work on a product
with the "feature" of transmitting Python expressions (over the wire)
which the client is supposed to evaluate.
How
===
At this point, only three steps exist in ``py.js``: tokenizing,
parsing and evaluation. It is possible that a compilation step be
added later (for performance reasons).
To evaluate a Python expression, the caller merely needs to call
`py.eval`_. `py.eval`_ takes a mandatory Python
expression to evaluate (as a string) and an optional context, for the
substitution of the free variables in the expression::
> py.eval("type in ('a', 'b', 'c') and foo", {type: 'c', foo: true});
true
This is great for one-shot evaluation of expressions. If the
expression will need to be repeatedly evaluated with the same
parameters, the various parsing and evaluation steps can be performed
separately: `py.eval`_ is really a shortcut for sequentially calling
`py.tokenize`_, `py.parse`_ and `py.evaluate`_.
API
===
.. _py.eval:
``py.eval(expr[, context])``
"Do everything" function, to use for one-shot evaluation of a
Python expression: it will internally handle the tokenizing,
parsing and actual evaluation of the Python expression without
having to perform these separately.
``expr``
Python expression to evaluate
``context``
context dictionary holding the substitutions for the free
variables in the expression
.. _py.tokenize:
``py.tokenize(expr)``
``expr``
Python expression to tokenize
.. _py.parse:
``py.parse(tokens)``
Parses a token stream and returns an abstract syntax tree of the
expression (if the token stream represents a valid Python
expression).
A parse tree is stateless and can be memoized and used multiple
times in separate evaluations.
``tokens``
stream of tokens returned by `py.tokenize`_
.. _py.evaluate:
``py.evaluate(ast[, context])``
``ast``
The output of `py.parse`_
``context``
The evaluation context for the Python expression.
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