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The Interpreter Pattern
Some programs benefit from having a language to describe operations they can perform. The Interpreter pattern generally describes defining a grammar for that language and using that grammar to interpret statements in that language.
When to Use an Interpreter
When a program presents a number of different but somewhat similar cases that it can deal with, it can be advantageous to use a simple language to describe these cases and then have the program interpret that language. Such cases can be as simple as the sort of Macro language recording facilities a number of office suite programs provide or as complex as VBA in Microsoft Office.
One of the problems we must deal with is how to recognize when a language can be helpful. ...
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