Translator – Assignment Vs. Equality

The Translator needs to decide when to add an equality operator to the output list and when to add an assignment operator. For now, commands won't be considered since support for commands has not been added to the Translator yet. Consider these assignment statements:

A = X * 5
A = B = C + D
A = B + (C = 5) * D
A = B = C + (D = 5)

There needs to a flag for when an equal should be an assignment operator and when it should be the equality operator. At the beginning of a line, a command is expected, so when there is an equal, it should be interpreted as an assignment operator (which is technically an assignment command). Once the expression starts, any equals should be interpreted as equality operators.

In the second example statement, the first and second equals are assignment operators since the expression to be assigned hasn't started yet. In the third example, the plus begins the expression, so the second equal is an equality operator. In the last example, the plus again begins the expression, so the third equal is an equality operator.

The flag will indicate whether whether the Translator is within a command and will be initialized to on at the beginning of the line. If a non-assignment operator is added to the output list this “in command” flag will be turned off. At each equal, if the flag is on then an assignment operator will be put on the hold stack; and if the flag is off, then an equality operator will be put on the hold stack.