Edit: I have re-written my original answer from when the question did not include the - and / operators). My new answer supports - and /.
Since you have not defined a precise grammar, I have made some assumptions. I support the +, -, /, ^ operators and the implicit multiply. These can operate on numbers, x and (...) expressions, except that right hand side of the ^ operator must be a number. I allow spaces between tokens.
Limitations: The -is a binary not unary - operator, So x-2 if OK, -2 on its own is a syntax error. The / is limited. You may divide by a value with a single coefficient such as 2, 'x', 2x^2, but not by cannot have 1/(x^2+1), which would evaluate to an infinite series.
It first takes the string and wraps it in a 'tokenizer' which lets you look it one token at a time, where a token is a number, x, ( ) or operator.
It then calls evaluateSum() which evaluates things separated by + or -, where each thing is a product evaluated by evaluateProduct(). This in turn uses evaluatePower() to evalue the ^. Finally evaluateTerm() looks for x, numbers and bracketed sub-expressions which are evaluates recursively with evaluateSum(). This hierarchy creates the correct operator precedence and evaluation order.
Each layer of the evaluation returns a 'coefficients' object which s array-like, but may contain megative indexes. For example [1,0,1] means 1+x^2.
It can cope with any number of nested brackets and a lot of other case such as xx(x) is x^3, 2^3 is 8. I have added a few throws for syntax errors, for example 2^x is illegal.
function makeTokenizer(source) {
var c, i, tokenizer;
i = 0; // The index of the current character.
c = source.charAt(i); // The current character.
function consumeChar() { // Move to next c, return previous c.
var prevC = c;
i += 1;
c = source.charAt(i);
return prevC;
}
tokenizer = {
next : function () {
var str;
while (c === ' ') { // Skip spaces
consumeChar();
}
if (!c) {
tokenizer.token = undefined; // End of source
} else if (c >= '0' && c <= '9') { // number
str = consumeChar(); // First digit
while (c >= '0' && c <= '9') { // Look for more digits.
str += consumeChar();
}
tokenizer.token = Number(str);
} else if (c === "x") {
tokenizer.token = consumeChar();
} else { // single-character operator
tokenizer.token = consumeChar();
}
}
};
tokenizer.next(); // Load first token.
return tokenizer;
}
function makeCoefficients() { // Make like an array but can have -ve indexes
var min = 0, max = 0, c = {};
return {
get: function (i) {
return c[i] || 0;
},
set: function (i, value) {
c[i] = value;
min = Math.min(i, min);
max = Math.max(i + 1, max);
return this; // for chaining
},
forEach: function (callback) {
var i;
for (i = min; i < max; i += 1) {
if (this.get(i)) {
callback(this.get(i), i);
}
}
},
toString: function () {
var result = "", first = true;
this.forEach(function (val, power) {
result += (val < 0 || first) ? "" : "+";
first = false;
result += (val === 1 && power !== 0) ? "" : val;
if (power) {
result += "x";
if (power !== 1) {
result += "^" + power;
}
}
});
return result;
},
toPowerOf: function (power) {
if (power === 0) {
return makeCoefficients().set(0, 1); // Anything ^0 = 1
}
if (power === 1) {
return this;
}
if (power < 0) {
throw "cannot raise to negative powers";
}
return this.multiply(this.toPowerOf(power - 1));
},
multiply: function (coefficients) {
var result = makeCoefficients();
this.forEach(function (a, i) {
coefficients.forEach(function (b, j) {
result.set(i + j, result.get(i + j) + a * b);
});
});
return result;
},
divide: function (coefficients) {
// Division is hard, for example we cannot do infinite series like:
// 1/(1 + x^2) = sum_(n=0 to infinity) 1/2 x^n ((-i)^n + i^n)
// So we do a few easy cases only.
var that = this, result = makeCoefficients(), done;
coefficients.forEach(function (value, pow) {
that.forEach(function (value2, pow2) {
result.set(pow2 - pow, value2 / value);
});
if (done) {
throw "cannot divide by " + coefficients.toString();
}
done = true;
});
return result;
},
add: function (coefficients, op) {
var result = makeCoefficients();
this.forEach(function (value, i) {
result.set(value, i);
});
op = (op === "-" ? -1 : 1);
coefficients.forEach(function (value, i) {
result.set(i, result.get(i) + value * op);
});
return result;
}
};
}
var evaluateSum; // Called recursively
function evaluateTerm(tokenizer) {
var result;
if (tokenizer.token === "(") {
tokenizer.next();
result = evaluateSum(tokenizer);
if (tokenizer.token !== ")") {
throw ") missing";
}
tokenizer.next();
} else if (typeof tokenizer.token === "number") {
result = makeCoefficients().set(0, tokenizer.token);
tokenizer.next();
} else if (tokenizer.token === "x") {
tokenizer.next();
result = makeCoefficients().set(1, 1); // x^1
} else {
return false; // Not a 'term'
}
return result;
}
function evaluatePower(tokenizer) {
var result;
result = evaluateTerm(tokenizer);
if (tokenizer.token === "^") {
tokenizer.next();
if (typeof tokenizer.token !== "number") {
throw "number expected after ^";
}
result = result.toPowerOf(tokenizer.token);
tokenizer.next();
}
return result;
}
function evaluateProduct(tokenizer) {
var result, term, divOp;
result = evaluatePower(tokenizer);
if (!result) {
throw "Term not found";
}
while (true) {
divOp = (tokenizer.token === "/");
if (divOp) {
tokenizer.next();
term = evaluatePower(tokenizer);
result = result.divide(term);
} else {
term = evaluatePower(tokenizer);
if (!term) {
break;
}
result = result.multiply(term);
}
}
return result;
}
function evaluateSum(tokenizer) {
var result, op;
result = evaluateProduct(tokenizer);
while (tokenizer.token === "+" || tokenizer.token === "-") {
op = tokenizer.token;
tokenizer.next();
result = result.add(evaluateProduct(tokenizer), op);
}
return result;
}
function evaluate(source) {
var tokenizer = makeTokenizer(source),
coefficients = evaluateSum(tokenizer);
if (tokenizer.token) {
throw "Unexpected token " + tokenizer.token;
}
console.log(source + " => " + coefficients.toString());
}
// Examples:
evaluate("(x+1)(x+1)"); // => 1+2x+x^2
evaluate("(x+1)^2"); // => 1+2x+x^2
evaluate("(x+1)(x+1)(x+1)"); // => 1+3x+3x^2+x^3
evaluate("(x+1)^3"); // => 1+3x+3x^2+x^3
evaluate("(x)(x+1)"); // => x+x^2
evaluate("(x+1)(x)"); // => x+x^2
evaluate("3x^0"); // => 3
evaluate("2^3"); // => 8
evaluate("(x+2x(x+2(x+1)x))"); // => x+6x^2+4x^3
evaluate("(x+1)(x-1)"); // => -1+x^2
evaluate("(x+1)(x+1)/x"); // x^-1+2+x
//evaluate("(x+1)/(x^2 + 1)"); //throws cannot divide by 1+2x
