Postfix Notation Calculator

Hi,
I'm looking for a postfix notation calculator program in C that uses a stack with push and pop functions to compute results. My main problem is with the stack and push and pop -- I do not understand how they work. Please help.

Try this!

picture a stack as a stack of dinner plates

when you push one you put one on top;
when you pop one you take one off the top.


so if you input 2 3 +
you
push 2
push 3
and whe you reach an operator you
pop 2 and 3 and push the result

If you have linux or unix, you may have a built in calculator that works this way called dc ( desktop calculator) so you can try it out.

>My main problem is with the stack and push and pop -- I do not understand how they work.
A stack is actually very simple, you have a list of items where only the top item can be accessed. You can push a new item onto the stack, thus creating a new top item, and you can pop the current top off of the stack:

Code:

---

STACK:
1
2
3

POP:
2
3

PUSH 4:
4
2
3

---

Here is some simple code implementing a fairly general stack structure, feel free to play around with it to get a feel for the concept:

Code:

---

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

#define NULLITEM -1
typedef int item;

struct stack
{
  item *st;
  size_t size;
  size_t n;
};

typedef struct stack STACK;

void st_init ( STACK *s, size_t size )
{
  s->n = 0;
  s->size = size;
  s->st = malloc ( sizeof ( item ) * s->size );

  if ( s->st == NULL ) {
    fprintf ( stderr, "Error allocating memory\n" );
    exit ( EXIT_FAILURE );
  }
}

void st_kill ( STACK *s )
{
  if ( s->st != NULL )
    free ( s->st );
}

int st_empty ( STACK *s )
{
  return s->n == 0;
}

void st_push ( STACK *s, item new )
{
  if ( s->n == s->size ) {
    printf ( "Stack is full\n" );
    return;
  }

  s->st[s->n++] = new;
  printf ( "Pushed %d\n", new );
}

item st_pop ( STACK *s )
{
  if ( s->n == 0 ) {
    printf ( "Stack is empty\n" );
    return NULLITEM;
  }

  return s->st[--s->n];
}

int main ( void )
{
  int i;
  STACK my_stack = {0};

  st_init ( &my_stack, 3 );

  for ( i = 0; i < 5; i++ )
    st_push ( &my_stack, i );

  for ( i = 0; i < 5; i++ ) {
    int ret = st_pop ( &my_stack );

    if ( ret != NULLITEM )
      printf ( "Popped %d\n", ret );
  }

  st_kill ( &my_stack );

  return 0;
}

---

-Prelude