Suppose we have an expression like (5+5 * (x^x-5 | y && 3)) and we'd like to get some computer-understandable representation of that expression, like:

ADD Token[5] (MUL Token[5] (AND (BIT_OR (XOR Token[x] (SUB Token[x] Token[5])) Token[y]) Token[3])

In case you don't know how to do that or are looking for the solution right now, you should know that I'm not going to present a correct solution. This post is just a joke. You should use either a Shunting-yard algorithm or a recursive descent parser.

So if you're ready for madness... Let's go!

Let's take the Don't repeat yourself principle as a justification. Moreover, let's take it to the extreme: "Don't repeat". Indeed, why do we need to repeat what compiler developers already did?

Here we go

In case you're wondering what the heck is going on: all constants are converted to instances of the Token class, for which I overloaded all the operators. Overloading is done in a way to preserve the structure of an expression. The only thing we have to do then is to extract that information. In case you're not familiar with C++, I recommend you read something about operator overloading.

As you can see, g++ and python are required for that "parser". Unfortunately, the priority of a bitwise xor is too low to serve as a power operator.