Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> writes:

...

How about dumping the CALL_FUNCTION* opcodes, and replacing them with two non-argumented opcodes, called for the sake of argument NCALL_FUNC and NCALL_FUNC_KW.

NCALL_FUNC would pop a function object and a tuple off the stack and apply the function to the tuple.

NCALL_FUNC_KW would do the same, then pop a dictionary and then do the moral equivalent of f(*args,**kw).

No, this is a bad idea. Long, long ago, all calls requird building a tuple for the arguments first. This tuple creation turned out to be a major bottleneck. That's why the current call opcode exists.

Yes, I realize this now. I made my suggestion having not actually looked at the code or thought about it very much. I still think there is (or at least might be) value in rewriting the code for the more complex cases, and moving the dictionary creation out of the implementation of CALL_FUNCTION. Then the following could be made essentially equivalent: f(a,b,c=d,e=f) dict = {c:d,e:f} f(a,b,**dict) (modulo evaluation order). (I've made some changes to get BUILD_MAP using it's argument and construct literal dictionaries using it, which I'll whack up onto sf just as soon as I get round to it... ah, it's at https://sourceforge.net/patch/index.php?func=detailpatch&patch_id=102227&group_id=5470 ). Cheers, M. -- Those who have deviant punctuation desires should take care of their own perverted needs. -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp