postfix notation

language (Or "Reverse Polish Notation", RPN) One of the

possible orderings of functions and operands: in postfix

notation the functions are preceded by all their operands.

For example, what may normally be written as "1+2" becomes "1

2 +". Postfix notation is well suited for stack based

architectures but modern compilers reduced this advantage

considerably.

The best-known language with postfix syntax is FORTH. Some

Hewlett-Packard calculators use it, e.g. HP-25, HP-29C,

HP-41C, HP-23SII.

Compare: infix notation, prefix notation.

(2003-06-23)