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?

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Answer 1

This is a little function I threw together just now to solve this issue - it builds the expression by analyzing the string one character at a time (it's actually pretty quick though). This will take any mathematical expression (limited to +,-,*,/ operators only) and return the result. It can handle negative values and unlimited number operations as well.

The only "to do" left is to make sure it calculates * & / before + & -. Will add that functionality later, but for now this does what I need...

/**
* Evaluate a mathematical expression (as a string) and return the result
* @param {String} expr A mathematical expression
* @returns {Decimal} Result of the mathematical expression
* @example
*    // Returns -81.4600
*    expr("10.04+9.5-1+-100");
*/ 
function expr (expr) {

    var chars = expr.split("");
    var n = [], op = [], index = 0, oplast = true;

    n[index] = "";

    // Parse the expression
    for (var c = 0; c < chars.length; c++) {

        if (isNaN(parseInt(chars[c])) && chars[c] !== "." && !oplast) {
            op[index] = chars[c];
            index++;
            n[index] = "";
            oplast = true;
        } else {
            n[index] += chars[c];
            oplast = false;
        }
    }

    // Calculate the expression
    expr = parseFloat(n[0]);
    for (var o = 0; o < op.length; o++) {
        var num = parseFloat(n[o + 1]);
        switch (op[o]) {
            case "+":
                expr = expr + num;
                break;
            case "-":
                expr = expr - num;
                break;
            case "*":
                expr = expr * num;
                break;
            case "/":
                expr = expr / num;
                break;
        }
    }

    return expr;
}