[Tutor] bytecode primer, and avoiding a monster download

[Steven D'Aprano]

On 28/05/13 06:01, Jim Mooney wrote:
> I was looking at the bytecode doc page as a break from the Lutz book,
> since I like Assembler-type code due to its total non-ambiguity, but
> the page doesn't say much. Is there a doc somewhere that corresponds
> some of the bytecode to Python source? I thought rot_1, 2, 3, and 4
> looked useful, but it would take awhile to disassemble random programs
> to see what source they come from.

Python byte-code is not officially documented, and is subject to change.
But it should be relatively straight-forward to understand, the names
are mostly self-explanatory. The main thing to remember is that the
byte-code is reverse-polish stack-based, like Forth, Postscript, and
most Hewlett-Packard scientific calculators.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack-oriented_programming_language


> Another question. I tried installing a package that back-compiles (in
> win 7), so I could see things that way, and got the error
> "Unable to find vcvarsall.bat"

Shall we guess what package that is? I love guessing games!

Ah, who am I kidding. No I don't.


-- 
Steven