[pypy-dev] C interpreter written in Python, and running CPython on top of PyPy

[Armin Steinhoff]

Celli,

a C interpreter implemented on top of the PyPy interpreter make no sense 
if you need speed ... IMHO.

A better aproach would be to bind the TCC library ( libtcc -> 
http://bellard.org/tcc/tcc-doc.html#SEC22 ) to PyPy.
This library allows to compile on the fly and creates x86 executable 
code in memory space ... no link actions, just call it with a library call.

Regards

--Armin





Celil wrote:
> I have been thinking about the possibility of creating a C interpreter 
> in Python.
>
> Is anybody already working on that? With PyPy this would presumably be 
> quite easy to do. The interpreter will load the C code, create an AST 
> (presumably using pyparsing and the EBNF spec of the C-language), and 
> then populate the Flow Object Space with all the C objects, and create 
> a control flow graph of the application logic. This graph will 
> containe low level lltype objects, and can then be directly connected 
> to the RPython flow-graph generated after the RTyper step. This would 
> allow for seamless interoperability between C and PyPy, and would also 
> greatly simplify the task of porting existing CPython extensions such 
> as numpy.  Rather than going through the error prone task of 
> translating the whole code base into RPython, one will be able to 
> simply load the exiting C source code and integrate it directly into 
> the RPython flow graph. It will be possible to import *.h and *.c 
> files directly without any compilation, and they will run nearly as 
> fast thanks to PyPy's JIT technology.
>
> This would also allow us to do things like running CPython on top of 
> PyPy. Right now it is possible to run PyPy on top of CPython, but the 
> reverse is not. If CPython could be run on top of PyPy by interpreting 
> its C source code that would be truly amazing. Interpreting C code 
> would greatly help CPython developers by freeing them from the task of 
> having to repeatedly compile their code.
>
> Celil
>
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