in reply to perl language

Perl is compiled to bytecode, but the results of the compilation are not saved to disk.

Update: This is wrong, see below - it's not bytecode but an internal low level representation.

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Re^2: perl language
by salva (Canon) on Nov 12, 2007 at 14:48 UTC
    Perl is compiled to bytecode

    no, that is false, the Perl program is not compiled to bytecode (unless you use the B::Bytecode backend).

    It is parsed into an internal low level representation that is used later, on the execution stage (see ikegami response below), but this internal representation is not bytecode (for most definitions of bytecode :-)

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Re^2: perl language
by jdporter (Paladin) on Nov 12, 2007 at 15:43 UTC

    The result of compilation can be saved to disk as bytecode: see B::Bytecode. The bytecode can then be executed with ByteLoader.

    The Perl FAQ talks a bit about the compiled/interpreted question in Is it a Perl program or a Perl script? but doesn't get down to brass tacks.

    A word spoken in Mind will reach its own level, in the objective world, by its own weight
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Re^2: perl language
by jeanluca (Deacon) on Nov 12, 2007 at 12:29 UTC
    Would it improve performance if the byte-code could be saved and used instead ?

    Cheers
    LuCa
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      A past attempt resulted in slower code, but that could have been implementation-specific.

      There's also a lack of volunteers to maintain that part of the code, so it will be removed from 5.10 for being perpetually broken and hopelessly out of date.

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        are you referring to the pp tool ?
        But what I don't understand is that when the compiler already makes byte-code, how hard can it be to save that result into a file!
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