The Elzed API

The Elzed API consists of well over 100 calls. This may seem a bit much, but you can get started by using just 4 of them:

Call lzLoadElzed to bring the library into memory
Call lzInitialize to make the library ready to use
Call lzEvalExpStrToNum to evaluate an expression and return the answer
Call lzUnloadElzed to shut down the library and release resources

If that's all you need, what are all those other calls for? Plenty, actually, but before we get into that, let's touch on five core concepts: operands, operators, expressions, contexts, and scope.

Operands are numbers, strings, and boolean values. They can be constant values, variables, or arrays.

Operators act on operands to produce a result (generally another operand). They come in two broad varieties: internal (predefined operators like addition and subtraction) and external (defined by you and limited only by your imagination).

Expressions are made up (mostly) of operands and operators, and are really what Elzed was made for.

An Elzed context is a workspace in which you can perform calculations. It serves as a container for expressions, operators, and operands, and has attributes like the angle unit it uses, or whether implied multiplication is allowed.

You may already be familiar with scope. In Elzed, expressions, operators, and operands exist in a particular context, but also at a certain level of scope. For example, a variable's scope can be local (limited to the expression it appears in), global (limited to a particular context), or cosmic (available to all contexts). Note that expressions, operators, and operands at cosmic scope don't actually exist in a particular context (or exist in all contexts simultaneously, depending on your point of view).

So, why are there so many API calls? Our desire was to have each call do one specific thing, rather than have a parameter send the call down one of several related branches. The set of parameter retrieval calls for external operators is an example of this philosophy.

Since the same Elzed is used on all platforms, the API is the same. A few API calls, however, are supported only in one environment or the other. If a given API call is restricted, the nature of the restriction will be detailed in the "remarks" section of the call's documentation. If no restriction is noted in the "remarks" section, the call is available in all environments.

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