Question

I need to convert a math formula written in the Latex style to the function of a C/C++ code.
For example:
y = sin(x)^2 would become something like

double y = sin(x) * sin(x);

or

double y = pow(sin(x), 2);

where x is a variable defined somewhere before.
I mean that it should convert the latex formula to the C/C++ syntax. So that if there is a function y = G(x, y)^F(x) it doesn’t matter what is G(x,y) and F(x),
it is a problem of the programmer to define it. It will just generate

double y = pow(G(x, y), F(x)); 

When the formula is too complicated it will take some time to make include it in the C/C++ formula. Is there any way to do this conversion?

Answer 1

A mathematical equation, such as the ones in LaTeX, and a C expression are not interchangeable. The former states a relation between two terms, the latter defines an entity that can be evaluated, unambiguously yielding one value. a = b in C means ‘take the value in variable b and store it in variable a‘, wheres in Math, it means ‘in the current context, a and b are equal’. The first describes a computation process, the second describes a static fact. Consequently, the Math equation can be reversed: a = b is equivalent to b = a, but doing the same to the C equation yields something quite different.

To make matters worse, LaTeX formulae only contain the information needed to render the equations; often, this is not enough to capture their meaning.

Of course some LaTeX formulae, like your example, can be converted into C computations, but many others cannot, so any automated way of doing so would only make limited sense.