Translator – Arrays and Functions

As mentioned, the Translator will not know the number or subscripts that arrays should have.  It will also not know (except for internal functions) the number of arguments that functions should have. Worse, the Translator will not even know if an identifier with a parentheses refers to an array or a function. (The Translator will be able to identify a define function since the Parser has already identified these by the “FN” with their own token type.)

As it turns out, translation wise, arrays and functions can be are handled identically – one has subscripts and the other has arguments. But these can also be thought as operands just like for operators except where operators have one (unary) or two (binary) operands, arrays and functions can have one or more operands. Functions with no arguments (including the IntFuncN and DefFuncN token types) are already being handled as simple operands – the Translator didn't need to distinguish between variables and functions with no arguments.

To translate arrays and functions, a token that has a parentheses will be pushed onto the hold stack. The precedence of these tokens will the same as the open parentheses (between Null and close parentheses for the same reason) to keep them on the hold stack. Upon reaching the matching closing parentheses token, the number of operands will be counted (and validated for an internal function). The array or functions token will then be popped off of the hold stack and added to the output list. But exactly how will the operands be counted...