ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Operator-precedence parser

An operator-precedence parser is like a helper that helps us understand how to interpret math problems that have different operations like addition, multiplication, and subtraction in them.

Imagine you are a teacher who is trying to teach a group of five-year-olds how to solve math problems. You have a list of rules to share with them so they can solve the problems in a way that makes sense.

Let's say you give them the problem "2 + 3 * 4 - 1", which they do not know how to solve yet. You explain to them that when there is more than one operation in a problem, they need to know which one to do first.

This is where the operator-precedence parser comes in. It is like a list of rules for which operations to do first. In this case, the parser says to do multiplication before addition and subtraction. So the five-year-olds know they need to do 3 * 4 first, which equals 12.

Then they can add the other numbers like 2 and 12, which equals 14. Finally, they subtract 1, which equals 13. Using the operator-precedence parser helped them solve the problem in the right order.

In summary, an operator-precedence parser is like a guide for solving math problems that have multiple operations in them. It tells us which operations to do first so we can solve the problem correctly.