[Edu-sig] More Pythonic Precalculus (Python 2.0)

[David Scherer]

> In any case, the challenge before me was to accept algebraic
> expressions as strings, for whatever reasons.

How about just

>>> f = "2 * x**2 - 10*x + 2"
>>> eval(f, {'x' : 5})
2

or

def graph(f):
	for x in range(5):
		print x, eval(f)

or, if you have Numerical Python

from Numeric import *
x = arange(0,10,1.0)
y = eval("2 * x**2 - 10*x + 2")

or, if you happen to have VPython handy

from visual import *
x = arange(-10,10,1.0)
f = "2 * x**2 - 10*x + 2"
gcurve( x=x, y=eval(f) )

Dave