Parsing an input file which contains polynomials - parsing

Question

Hello experienced pythoners.
The goal is simply to read in my own files which have the following format, and to then apply mathematical operations to these values and polynomials. The files have the following format:
m1:=10:
m2:=30:
Z1:=1:
Z2:=-1:
...
Some very similar variables, next come the laguerre polynomials
...
F:= (12.58295)*L(0,x)*L(1,y)*L(6,z) + (30.19372)*L(0,x)*L(2,y)*L(2,z) - ...:
Where L stands for a laguerre polynomial and takes two arguments.
I have written a procedure in Python which splits apart each line into a left and right hand side split using the "=" character as a divider. The format of these files is always the same, but the number of laguerre polynomials in F can vary.
import re
linestring = open("file.txt", "r").read()
linestring = re.sub("\n\n","\n",str(linestring))
linestring = re.sub(",\n",",",linestring)
linestring = re.sub("\\+\n","+",linestring)
linestring = re.sub(":=\n",":=",linestring)
linestring = re.sub(":\n","\n",linestring)
linestring = re.sub(":","",linestring)
LINES = linestring.split("\n")
for LINE in LINES:
LINE = re.sub(" ","",LINE)
print "LINE=", LINE
if len(LINE) <=0:
next
PAIR = LINE.split("=")
print "PAIR=", PAIR
LHS = PAIR[0]
RHS = PAIR[1]
print "LHS=", LHS
print "RHS=", RHS
The first re.sub block just deals with formatting the file and discarding characters that python will not be able to process; then a loop is performed to print 4 things, LINE, PAIR, LHS and RHS, and it does this nicely. using the example file from above the procedure will print the following:
LINE= m1=1
PAIR= ['m1', '1']
LHS= m1
RHS= 1
LINE= m2=1
PAIR= ['m2', '1']
LHS= m2
RHS= 1
LINE= Z1=-1
PAIR= ['Z1', '-1']
LHS= Z1
RHS= -1
LINE= Z2=-1
PAIR= ['Z2', '-1']
LHS= Z2
RHS= -1
LINE= F= 12.5*L(0,x)L(1,y) + 30*L(0,x)L(2,y)L(2,z)
PAIR=['F', '12.5*L(0,x)L(1,y) + 30*L(0,x)L(2,y)L(2,z)']
LHS= F
RHS= 12.5*L(0,x)L(1,y) + 30*L(0,x)L(2,y)L(2,z)
My question is what is the next best step to process this output and use it in a mathematical script, especially assigning the L to mean a laguerre polynomial? I tried putting the LHS and RHS into a dictionary, but found it troublesome to put F in it due to the laguerre polynomials.
Any ideas are welcome. Perhaps I am overcomplicating this and there is a much simpler way to parse this file.
Many thanks in advance

Answer 1

Your parsing algorithm doesn't seem to work correctly, as the RHS of your variables dont produce the expected result.
Also the first re.sub block where you want to format the file seems overly complicated. Assuming every statement in your input file is terminated by a colon, you could get rid of all whitespace and newlines and seperate the statements using the following code:
linestring = open('file.txt','r').read()
strippedstring = linestring.replace('\n','').replace(' ','')
statements = re.split(':(?!=)',strippedstring)[:-1]
Then you iterate over the statements and split each one in LHS and RHS:
for st in statements:
lhs,rhs = re.split(':=',st)
print 'lhs=',lhs
print 'rhs=',rhs
In the next step, try to distinguish normal float variables and polynomials:
#evaluate rhs
try:
#interpret as numeric constant
f = float(rhs)
print " ",f
except ValueError:
#interpret as laguerre-polynomial
summands = re.split('\+', re.sub('-','+-',rhs))
for s in summands:
m = re.match("^(?P<factor>-?[0-9]*(\.[0-9]*)?)(?P<poly>(\*?L\([0-9]+,[a-z]\))*)", s)
if not m:
print ' polynomial misformatted'
continue
f = m.group('factor')
print ' factor: ',f
p = m.group('poly')
for l in re.finditer("L\((?P<a>[0-9]+),(?P<b>[a-z])\)",p):
print ' poly: L(%s,%s)' % (l.group("a"),l.group("b"))
This should work for your given example file.