On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 6:21 PM, Terry Reedy <tjre...@udel.edu> wrote: > On 7/9/2011 2:28 PM, Eric Snow wrote: >> >> A tracker issue [1] recently got me thinking about what makes >> functions special. The discussion there was regarding the distinction >> between compile time (generation of .pyc files for modules and >> execution of code blocks), [function] definition time, and [function] >> execution time. Definition time actually happens during compile time, > > Not true. For main modules, execution of each statement immediately follows > compilation, but not for other modules, where compilation and caching of > code objects may happen years before the function object is created. >
So for non-main modules the function definition happens during module compilation, and for all other code blocks (__main__, exec, etc.) it happens during execution of the code block? >> Functions are a special case in Python for providing a more optimized >> execution of a code block in pure Python code. And how is that? When >> the function is defined, a code object is generated for the function >> body along with a few "static" details that will be used during >> execution. No other objects have code objects. No other objects in >> Python have this special optimization. > > A .pyc file is a serialized code object for a module. > I hadn't thought of it like that. Nice insight. In that case, do [non-main] module definition and execution time have the same logical separation as function phases do? > As for the rest, I am not sure what you are asking. > Yeah, I have a real knack for communicating. :) Mostly I am just trying to put together more pieces of the Python puzzle. In this case I was trying to find out if the optimized execution of code objects for functions is a part of the language or just an implementation detail. -eric > Terry Reedy > > -- > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list > -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
