Use literal operators (eg "and", "or") in Groovy expressions? - groovy

Question

My current work project allows user-provided expressions to be evaluated in specific contexts, as a way for them to extend and influence the workflow. These expressions the usual logical ones f. To make it a bit palatable for non-programmers, I'd like to give them the option of using literal operators (e.g. and, or, not instead of &, |, !).
A simple search & replace is not sufficient, as the data might contains those words within quotes and building a parser, while doable, may not be the most elegant and efficient solution.
To make the question clear: is there a way in Groovy to allow the users to write
x > 10 and y = 20 or not z
but have Groovy evaluate it as if it were:
x > 10 && y == 20 || !z
Thank you.

Answer 1

Recent versions of Groovy support Command chains, so it's indeed possible to write this:
compute x > 10 and y == 20 or not(z)
The word "compute" here is arbitrary, but it cannot be omitted, because it's the first "verb" in the command chain. Everything that follows alternates between verb and noun:
compute x > 10 and y == 20 or not(z)
───┬─── ──┬─── ─┬─ ───┬─── ─┬─ ──┬───
verb noun verb noun verb noun
A command chain is compiled like this:
verb(noun).verb(noun).verb(noun)...
so the example above is compiled to:
compute(x > 10).and(y == 20).or(not(z))
There are many ways to implement this. Here is just a quick & dirty proof of concept, that doesn't implement operator precedence, among other things:
class Compute {
private value
Compute(boolean v) { value = v }
def or (boolean w) { value = value || w; this }
def and(boolean w) { value = value && w; this }
String toString() { value }
}
def compute(v) { new Compute(v) }
def not(boolean v) { !v }
You can use command chains by themselves (as top-level statements) or to the right-hand side of an assignment operator (local variable or property assignment), but not inside other expressions.

Answer 2

If you can swap operators like > and = for the facelets-like gt and eq, respectively, i THINK your case may be doable, though it will require a lot of effort:
x gt 10 and y eq 20 or not z
resolves to:
x(gt).10(and).y(eq).20(or).not(z)
And this will be hell to parse.
The way #Brian Henry suggested is the easiest way, though not user-friendly, since it needs the parens and dots.
Well, considering we can swap the operators, you could try to intercept the Integer.call to start expressions. Having the missing properties in a script being resolved to operations can solve your new keywords problem. Then you can build expressions and save them to a list, executing them in the end of the script. It's not finished, but i came along with this:
// the operators that can be used in the script
enum Operation { eq, and, gt, not }
// every unresolved variable here will try to be resolved as an Operation
def propertyMissing(String property) { Operation.find { it.name() == property} }
// a class to contain what should be executed in the end of the script
#groovy.transform.ToString
class Instruction { def left; Operation operation; def right }
// a class to handle the next allowed tokens
class Expression {
Closure handler; Instruction instruction
def methodMissing(String method, args) {
println "method=$method, args=$args"
handler method, args
}
}
// a list to contain the instructions that will need to be parsed
def instructions = []
// the start of the whole mess: an integer will get this called
Integer.metaClass {
call = { Operation op ->
instruction = new Instruction(operation: op, left: delegate)
instructions << instruction
new Expression(
instruction: instruction,
handler:{ String method, args ->
instruction.right = method.toInteger()
println instructions
this
})
}
}
x = 12
y = 19
z = false
x gt 10 and y eq 20 or not z
Which will give an exception, due the not() part not being implemented, but it can build two Instruction objects before failing:
[Instruction(12, gt, 10), Instruction(19, eq, 20)]
Not sure if it is worth it.

Answer 3

The GDK tacks on and() and or() methods to Boolean. If you supplied a method like
Boolean not(Boolean b) {return !b}
you could write something like
(x > 10).and(y == 20).or(not(4 == 1))
I'm not sure that's particularly easy to write, though.