Question

We have to read and execute an external file written in a made-up programming language. Here is an example of the language:

[while
   [x-is-larger-than 300]
   [seq
      [command1]
      [command2]
   ]
]

We were thinking about using different classes for each command or condition.

Our question is: how do we read and execute these commands in order?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I strongly encourage you to

1. Write a grammar for the invented language
2. Use a parser-generator to generate a parser for the language

and then

1. Use the parser to parse a given program.
2. Execute the program by traversing the AST directly,
   or,
   Compile the AST to a sequential program which is easy to interpret statement by statement.