Stability of PYC files

[Guido van Rossum]

Are the Python compiled bytecode PYC files stable enough that you can
take PYC files generated by older versions of Python and run them
without the source on newer versions?

Definitely NOT. The PYC files are a detail of the implementation and
vary across versions!

Has anyone ever tried to document Python bytecode?

Not exactly, but the docs for the standard library module "dis" give a
lot of details. Also read the source for py_compile.py.

Does jPython compile to Java bytecode, or does it act more directly as
an interpreter, or does it use an intermediate bytecode?

Jython generates Java bytecode (which mostly consists of calls into
the Jython run-time library :-).

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

[Stephen Horne]

Thanks

[Stephen Horne]

Are the Python compiled bytecode PYC files stable enough that you can
take PYC files generated by older versions of Python and run them
without the source on newer versions?

Has anyone ever tried to document Python bytecode?

Does jPython compile to Java bytecode, or does it act more directly as
an interpreter, or does it use an intermediate bytecode?


Sorry for the wierd questions ;-)