That is much clearer now.
Thanks a lot Raymond for taking the time out to explain this to me.
On a closing note, is this mailing list the right place to ask these kinds of
n00b questions?
Obi.
> On 18 Jun 2016, at 23:10, Raymond Hettinger <raymond.hettin...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>> On Jun 18, 2016, at 2:04 PM, Obiesie ike-nwosu via Python-Dev
>> <python-dev@python.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Could some one give a hand with explaining to me why we have a JUMP_ABSOLUTE
>> followed by a JUMP_FORWARD op code when this function is disassembled.
>> < snipped>
>> From my understanding, once JUMP_ABSOLUTE is executed, then JUMP_FORWARD is
>> never gotten to so must be dead code so why is it being generated?
>> Furthermore why is JUMP_ABSOLUTE rather than JUMP_FORWARD used in this
>> particular case of nested if statements? I have tried other types of nested
>> if statements and it has always been JUMP_FORWARD that
>> is generated.
>
> The AST compilation step generates code with two JUMP_FORWARDs (see below).
> Then, the peephole optimizer recognizes a jump-to-an-unconditional-jump and
> replaces the first one with a JUMP_ABSOLUTE to save an unnecessary step.
>
> The reason that it uses JUMP_ABSOLUTE instead of JUMP_FORWARD is that the
> former is more general (it can jump backwards). Using the more general form
> reduces the complexity of the optimizer.
>
> The reason that the remaining jump-to-jump isn't optimized is that the
> peepholer is intentionally kept simplistic, making only a single pass over
> the opcodes. That misses some optimizations but gets the most common cases.
>
> FWIW, the jump opcodes are very fast, so missing the final jump-to-jump isn't
> much of a loss.
>
> If you're curious, the relevant code is in Python/compile.c and
> Python/peephole.c. The compile.c code generated opcodes in the most
> straight-forward way possible and then the peephole optimizer gets some of
> the low-hanging fruit by making a few simple transformations.
>
>
> Raymond
>
>
> ------------ AST generated code before peephole optimization -----------------
>
>
> 5 0 LOAD_CONST 1 (10)
> 3 LOAD_CONST 2 (11)
> 6 BUILD_TUPLE 2
> 9 UNPACK_SEQUENCE 2
> 12 STORE_FAST 0 (a)
> 15 STORE_FAST 1 (b)
>
> 6 18 LOAD_FAST 0 (a)
> 21 LOAD_CONST 1 (10)
> 24 COMPARE_OP 5 (>=)
> 27 POP_JUMP_IF_FALSE 53
>
> 7 30 LOAD_FAST 1 (b)
> 33 LOAD_CONST 2 (11)
> 36 COMPARE_OP 5 (>=)
> 39 POP_JUMP_IF_FALSE 50
>
> 8 42 LOAD_CONST 3 ('hello world')
> 45 PRINT_ITEM
> 46 PRINT_NEWLINE
> 47 JUMP_FORWARD 0 (to 50)
>>> 50 JUMP_FORWARD 0 (to 53)
>>> 53 LOAD_CONST 0 (None)
> 56 RETURN_VALUE
>
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