[Python-3000] AST access (WAS: Adaptation vs. Generic Functions) (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Mon Apr 10 03:25:35 CEST 2006

On 4/9/06, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:

Robert Brewer wrote: > Part of the benefit of the bytecode-hacking is that your expression > never has to be in a string.

I'm wondering whether there should be some kind of "code literal" syntax, where you write a Python expression and the compiler transforms it as far as the AST stage, then makes it available to the program as an AST object. Or would that be too close to "programmable syntax" for Guido's liking?

I'm more concerned about the choice of AST data structure and how it affects IronPython, PyPy, Jython and possible other Python implementations. I'd like to keep both the AST and the bytecode spec out of the language spec, otherwise those implementations will face the tough choice of either changing their parser technology to one that is probably less suited, or implementing two full parsers.

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

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