Generic Mathamatecial Expressions... On Computers

Hello,

Im interested in programming several different types of programs that can preform very complex calculations but have ran into the problem of a simple way to create an expression for different types of calculations. To put it simply taking the calculation like: [IMG]file:///tmp/moz-screenshot.jpg[/IMG][IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/4/f/0/4f0feb251d1976d70f645ee00caa089e.png[/IMG]

could be written as:

\sum_{k = 0}^{n} \frac{16^{n-k} \mod 8k+1}{8k+1} + \sum_{k = n + 1}^{\infty} \frac{16^{n-k}}{8k+1}

(Calculation for extracting 16bit values of PI)

My question is where i can find a documentation on this kind of expression (like if i had my own expression and wanted to change it into that kind of format).

Thanks ~Cody Woolaver

I don't have a direct answer. But, here is a thought...

How would the mathematical expression be input to your program ?

Consider Open Office suite's Formula s/w. You can build the expression you have written above and save it into one of the popular formats (latex, MathML, etc.). Once saved, you could then parse it in the way that particular format is document.

Thanks, after reading that document i found that the syntax is called LaTeX