YIELD_VALUE Byte Code

Andreas Löscher andreas.loescher at s2005.tu-chemnitz.de
Wed Nov 11 05:06:32 EST 2009


Hi,
I am not sure if this is the right newsgroup, so if not don't hesitate
to tell me.

I am developed a Python to C compiler, so that Byte Code files
automatically can be translated into C Extension Modules. (And it works
pretty well --> http://www.coremountains.com/products/bytecoat/)

While developing, I found something strange concerning the YIELD_VALUE
OpCode.

Since Python Version 2.5 it behaves the following:
	1. pop yield value from stack and return it to
		a former gen_send_ex() call from Objects/genobject.c

	2. push the yield value on the stack in gen_send_ex() and return 		it

	3. when the generator is executed again, the yield value is
		'poped' from the stack again with the POP_TOP opcode

Now I found that a little strange:
	1. why is the value removed from the stack, than pushed on the 
		stack to remove it finally again? the combination of 
		YIELD_VALUE and TOP_POP seems hard coded in compile.c
		which means that a TOP_POP follows every YIELD_VALUE 
		TOP_POP

	2. If the semantic of the YIELD_VALUE OpCode has changed, why
		is this reached by using another function? Such thing 
		should be done in the OpCode.

		(e.a.: instead of retval = POP() 
			--> retval = TOP(); Py_INCREF(retval); )


I am a little confused about this.

Best,
Andreas




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