Wizard is a math expression processor that is intended to do fast number crunching.
All internal calculations are done using the C double data type.
Wizard is NOT a plug in replacement for progams such as bc. It's NOT even a full programming language. There is no flow control, and the only variable is ., which like in bc represents the last numerical result.
Wizard is written in ANSI-C, using Bison and Flex.
To build Wizard, you will need gcc, flex, bison and make. It is built and tested on a Fedora Linux system, but shoud build on any UNIX like system that has the needed components installed however.
To actually build it, simply:
make all
Then copy the wizard binary to someplace in your path.
Wizard can be run interactively, in a pipe or with a file handed to it on the command line or with the shebang ( #! ) in scripts.
The language is simple:
<number> <op> <number>
<function> <number>
"<string>"
White space can be used to separate operations, functions, and numbers, but is optional.
You can use ()'s any place and they can be nested, but cannot span lines. See below for more details about using ()'s and precedence.
A number can be just about any format that the C library understands.
Operators are +, -, *, /, ^.
There are currently 2 constants that wizard knows about: pi, and e.
Functions are as follows:
sqrt - square root
cbrt - cube root
log - log
exp - natural log
cos - cosine
sin - sine
tan - tangent
acos - inverse of cos
asin - inverse of sin
atan - inverse of tan
rad - converts degrees to radians
deg - converts radians to degrees
rnd - return a random number upto the number specified
The value to trig functions must be in radians. Functions can be nested, so you can use the rad function to convert degrees to radians, ie: sin rad 90.
()'s are optional, even with functions, but pay attention to the order of precedence.
Order of precedence, for the most part, is normally what you'd expect from solving arithmetic problems. BUT, and that's a BIG BUT, make no assumptions. If you want to be 100% sure use ()'s.
Some examples of where things might not be what they seem to be and you really want to use ():
what you ...
| entered | actually got | probably wanted |
|---|---|---|
| 6/2*(2+1) | 6*(2+1)/2 | 6/(2*(2+1)) |
| sin pi/2 | (sin pi)/2 | sin(pi/2) |
| sqrt -1^2 | sqrt (-1^2) | sqrt (-1^2) |
The last one probably being the only one that gave you what you really wanted, but shows the clarity that using () can make and it's can be a big difference.
Stings are anything in quotes, " "'s. They are literal, can contain any printable character, but cannot span lines. A null string, "" will print a new line.
You can use a # for comments like many other languages. They can appear anywhere on the line, but anything on the line after the # is ignored.
ctrl-d or q will exit, if being run interactively.
See example.w for more examples.
When possible, the results in example.w were double checked against the bc program and/or a Casio fx-115ES and Prizm Calculators.
Also included is a file of shell functions, wizard.sh that can be sourced to provdie access to the wizard commands conviently from the shell, or even a shell script.
An couple of examples:
rnd 10
echo $pi
sin $(rnd $pi)
Wizard is covered under the GNU General Public License v2.
(c) 2015 Derrik Walker v2.0, dwalker@doomd.net