Evaluating a string as a mathematical expression in JavaScript

Question

How do I parse and evaluate a mathematical expression in a string (e.g. \'1+1\') without invoking eval(string) to yield its numerical value?

<

Answer 1

An alternative to the excellent answer by @kennebec, using a shorter regular expression and allowing spaces between operators

function addbits(s) {
    var total = 0;
    s = s.replace(/\s/g, '').match(/[+\-]?([0-9\.\s]+)/g) || [];
    while(s.length) total += parseFloat(s.shift());
    return total;
}

Use it like

addbits('5 + 30 - 25.1 + 11');

Update

Here's a more optimised version

function addbits(s) {
    return (s.replace(/\s/g, '').match(/[+\-]?([0-9\.]+)/g) || [])
        .reduce(function(sum, value) {
            return parseFloat(sum) + parseFloat(value);
        });
}