[OT] -10^2

[Geoff Canyon]

On Friday, May 23, 2003, at 07:50  AM, Jan Schenkel wrote:

> --- Geoff Canyon <gcanyon at inspiredlogic.com> wrote:
>>
>> I was assuming there were other values on the stack beneath the given
>> expression. In other words how would you make the - negate the 10^2
>> portion of this instead of subtracting 5 from it?
>>
>> 5 10  2  ^  -  *
>>
>> What I want is this:
>>
>> (-(10^2))*5
>
> In this case, you would have to put the 5 between the
> minus and the multiply
>
> 10  2   ^  -   5   *
>
> Or you could sneak in a zero and make the minus a
> binary operator :
>
> 5   0   10  2   ^   -   *

So even with RPN it's possible to have ambiguity. Is it possible to use 
parenthesis to resolve it, or do you have to use the tricks listed 
above?

regards,

Geoff Canyon
gcanyon at inspiredlogic.com