[Python-Dev] SET_LINENO and python options

[Guido van Rossum]

> Hasn't backward compatibility already been broken for 2.0?  So why not
> break it a little more?  

Sure -- within reason.

> It always seemed odd to me that the current line number is always kept
> up to date, even though 99.999% of the time, no one will care.  Why
> not just keep a small table that holds the offset in the bytecode at
> which each line starts, and look it up when it's needed?

That already exists.  Search for co_lnotab, and for PyCode_Addr2Line().

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.pythonlabs.com/~guido/)