Question

I want to be able to specify mathematical rules in an external location to my application and have my application process them at run time and perform actions (again described externally). What is the best way to do this?

For example, I might want to execute function MyFunction1() when the following evaluates to true:

(a < b) & MyFunction2() & (myWord == "test").

Thanks in advance for your help.

(If it is of any relevance, I wish to use C++, C or C++/CLI)

Answer 1

I’d consider not reinventing the wheel — use an embedded scripting engine. This means you’d be using a standard form for describing the actions and logic. There are several great options out there that will probably be fine for your needs.

Good options include:

1. Javascript though google v8. (I don’t love this from an embedding point of view,
   but javascript is easy to work with, and many people already know it)

2. Lua. Its fast and portable. Syntax is maybe not as nice as Javascript, but embedding is
   easy.

3. Python. Clean syntax, lots of libraries. Not much fun to embed though.

I’d consider using SWIG to help generate the bindings … I know it works for python and lua, not sure about v8.