Converting ASCII math notation to Python

Question

I am accepting user input in ascii math notation and need to evaluate that input in python with help from the sympy library.

For example, a user might input:

2x^2

My understanding is that to evaluate this function in python, it would need to be in format:

2*x**2

My thought is that there must already be some libraries out there that could help with notation conversion but I have been unable to find any... Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Possible duplicate of [Evaluating a mathematical expression in a string](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2371436/evaluating-a-mathematical-expression-in-a-string) — R4444, May 01 '19 at 05:37

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 06 '19 at 05:19

The parse_expr function will help:

>>> from sympy.parsing.sympy_parser import (parse_expr, convert_xor, 
    standard_transformations, implicit_multiplication)
>>> parse_expr('2x^2',transformations=standard_transformations+
... (convert_xor,implicit_multiplication))
2*x**2

Converting ASCII math notation to Python

1 Answers1