How can I use tuples in recursive functions?-CodePudding

I have to make a function where the input is a tuple consisting of 3 elements: elements 1 and 3 are numbers or other tuples with the same structure, and the second element is a string indicating an operation. An example would be (10, '-', (5, '*', 3)) and should return -5. The problem is that the function must be recursive and I can't find a way of working with tuples with recursive functions.

def evaluate(equation):
    if type(equation[0]) != tuple and type(equation[2]) != tuple:
        if equation[1] == " ":
            return equation[0]   equation[2]
        if equation[1] == "*":
            return equation[0] * equation[2]
        if equation[1] == "-":
            return equation[0] - equation[2]
        if equation[1] == "/":
            return equation[0] / equation[2]

I managed to create a foundation to operate, but I can't find an algorithm that finds all the empty tuples and keeps those values to operate latter.

CodePudding user response：

Evaluate the left and right sides of the tuple before performing the operation.

def evaluate(equation):
    left, operation, right = equation
    if type(left) == tuple:
        left = evaluate(left)
    if type(right) == tuple:
        right = evaluate(right)
    if operation == " ":
        return left   right
    elif operation == "*":
        return left * right
    elif operation == "-":
        return left - right
    elif operation == "/":
        return left / right