derivative calulator

simple symbolic differentiator that takes simple expressions and gives their derivatives

Grammar Used

expr    = term (('+' | '-') term)*
term    = factor (('*' | '/') factor)*
factor  = base ('^' factor)?
base    = NUMBER | VARIABLE | '(' expr ')' | '-' base

- expr => handles addition and subtraction
- term => handles multiplication and division
- factor => handles exponentiation
- base handles => numbers, variables, parentheses, and unary minus

making this

I initially thought of using libraries to evaluate the mathematical expressions using libraries but since i'll be dealing with symbols of some sort, maybe it's feasible if i wrote a parser/tokenizer from scratch since I had some idea on how to write a tokenizer or parser from previous small projects. So...

• I'll be writing a tokenizer and parser from scratch lets see how that goes (it did not go well)

What works and what doesn't?

• sum rule
• power rule
• multiplication by a constant
• product rule(simples ones tho)
• difference rule
• chain rule
• trignonometric functions [not yet implemented]

update 1 (2025-06-21)

• currently working on the tokenizer (still) i focused more on writing better code instead of just programming it out
• I'm taking references from the docs and existing tokenizers lets see how this goes

update 2 (2025-07-08)

• I've taken the tokenizer present on mkdb as reference for this and modified it
• I've followed the Recursive Descent Parsing parsing method for this project

update 3 (2025-07-7)

• was kinda stuck on parser when it failed to include the variable 'x' in parse tree(AST), well it was a simple mistake, I forgot the BinaryOperator in between
• currently working on the parser(still)

Installation & Running

# install cargo
sudo pacman -S cargo
git clone https://github.com/razzat008/derivative_calculator
cd derivative_calculator
cargo build # installing dependencies
cargo run

Dependencies

rustyline = "16.0.0" # To handle the input from user

References

• (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs)[https://web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf]
• (An implementation of a database from scratch in rust)[https://github.com/antoniosarosi/mkdb]