Python code written in 1998, how to improve/change it?

[Bengt Richter]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 08:53:59 +1300, Carl Cerecke <cdc at maxnet.co.nz> wrote:

>Bengt Richter wrote:
>> On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 23:16:57 -0500, Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com> wrote:
>
>> How about something like
>> 
>>  >>> actions = dict(
>>  ...    a=compile('print "A"; state="b"','','exec'),
>>  ...    b=compile('print "B"; state="c"','','exec'),
>>  ...    c=compile('print "C"; state=None','','exec')
>>  ... )
>>  >>> state = 'a'
>>  >>> while state: eval(actions[state])
>>  ...
>>  A
>>  B
>>  C
>
>Good idea. But we can eliminate the dictionary lookup:
>
>a1 = compile('print "A"; state=b1','','exec')
>b1 = compile('print "B"; state=c1','','exec')
>c1 = compile('print "C"; state=None','','exec')
>
>state = a1
>while state:
>     eval(state)
>
Cool. But unfortunately, neither version works inside a function's local namespace.
Using exec instead of eval seems to do it in either context though.
Now, how can we get optimized code (i.e., LOAD_FAST vs LOAD_NAME etc in a1 etc)
without byte code hackery?

Regards,
Bengt Richter