> I've been experimenting with ActiveState's PerlAPP (a utility
> available in
> the PDK) over the last few day. It's a pretty cool utility, which
> seems to imbed the Perl interpreter in the proces of making an .exe
> file. However, this has got me to thinking if there is any way to
> compile a Perl program into (in this case) Windows machine code
> (rather than byte code).
Not yet. There is perlcc (perl compiler) but it's still experimental
and actualy doesn't seem to work under Windows at all.
> Although I really don't understand the technical aspects of byte code
> and
> machine code, my understanding is that native machine code is the form
> of code which will (normally) run the fastest.
Well yes and no. You spend most of your time in a heavily
optimized implementation of the bytecode operations in Perl
programs (normal as well as compiled to bytecode) so it doesn't
really matter much whether the rest is a machine code that calls
the functions or a bytecode that's interpreted by something that
calls the functions. The difference would be minor.
Plus you have to take into account that you'd still have to have a
"runtime". Something that would take care of garbage collection
(reusing memory after no longer used variables), etc. etc. etc.
> And one more question: I seem to have read (somewhere) that using a
> utility
> like PerlApp will, if anything, tend to make the program run a little
> slower. However, in my case, my program, which creates user accounts
> and other things, runs about 2 seconds faster (per account; 6-7
> seconds vs. 7-9 seconds).
I think you misunderstood the sentence (or it was wrong).
When you start the PerlApp generated program it has to extract
and save some files which may slow down the start up a little.
But it will not be anything big.
Then it could be a little quicker actualy.
Though I don't see why it would be quicker in your case.
Jenda
P.S.: I'm not working on the perlcc or PerlApp so I may be wrong in
something. Don't take what I say as "carved in stone". I may be
wrong.
== [EMAIL PROTECTED] == http://Jenda.Krynicky.cz ==
: What do people think?
What, do people think? :-)
-- Larry Wall in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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