107 lines
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107 lines
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HTML
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Copyright (C) 1996-1997, 2000-2005, 2009-2023 Free Software Foundation,
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Copyright (C) 2021 Maxime Devos
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Copyright (C) 2024 Tomas Volf
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<title>A Virtual Machine for Guile (Guile Reference Manual)</title>
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<link href="Concept-Index.html" rel="index" title="Concept Index">
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<link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents">
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<link href="Guile-Implementation.html" rel="up" title="Guile Implementation">
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<link href="Compiling-to-the-Virtual-Machine.html" rel="next" title="Compiling to the Virtual Machine">
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<div class="section-level-extent" id="A-Virtual-Machine-for-Guile">
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<p>
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Next: <a href="Compiling-to-the-Virtual-Machine.html" accesskey="n" rel="next">Compiling to the Virtual Machine</a>, Previous: <a href="Data-Representation.html" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Data Representation</a>, Up: <a href="Guile-Implementation.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Guile Implementation</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Concept-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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<hr>
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<h3 class="section" id="A-Virtual-Machine-for-Guile-1"><span>9.3 A Virtual Machine for Guile<a class="copiable-link" href="#A-Virtual-Machine-for-Guile-1"> ¶</a></span></h3>
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<p>Enough about data—how does Guile run code?
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</p>
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<p>Code is a grammatical production of a language. Sometimes these
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languages are implemented using interpreters: programs that run
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along-side the program being interpreted, dynamically translating the
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high-level code to low-level code. Sometimes these languages are
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implemented using compilers: programs that translate high-level
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programs to equivalent low-level code, and pass on that low-level code
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to some other language implementation. Each of these languages can be
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thought to be virtual machines: they offer programs an abstract machine
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on which to run.
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</p>
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<p>Guile implements a number of interpreters and compilers on different
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language levels. For example, there is an interpreter for the Scheme
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language that is itself implemented as a Scheme program compiled to a
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bytecode for a low-level virtual machine shipped with Guile. That
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virtual machine is implemented by both an interpreter—a C program that
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interprets the bytecodes—and a compiler—a C program that dynamically
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translates bytecode programs to native machine code<a class="footnote" id="DOCF36" href="#FOOT36"><sup>36</sup></a>.
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</p>
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<p>This section describes the language implemented by Guile’s bytecode
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virtual machine, as well as some examples of translations of Scheme
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programs to Guile’s VM.
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</p>
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<ul class="mini-toc">
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<li><a href="Why-a-VM_003f.html" accesskey="1">Why a VM?</a></li>
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<li><a href="VM-Concepts.html" accesskey="2">VM Concepts</a></li>
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<li><a href="Stack-Layout.html" accesskey="3">Stack Layout</a></li>
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<li><a href="Variables-and-the-VM.html" accesskey="4">Variables and the VM</a></li>
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<li><a href="VM-Programs.html" accesskey="5">Compiled Procedures are VM Programs</a></li>
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<li><a href="Object-File-Format.html" accesskey="6">Object File Format</a></li>
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<li><a href="Instruction-Set.html" accesskey="7">Instruction Set</a></li>
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<li><a href="Just_002dIn_002dTime-Native-Code.html" accesskey="8">Just-In-Time Native Code</a></li>
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</ul>
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</div>
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<div class="footnotes-segment">
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<hr>
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<h4 class="footnotes-heading">Footnotes</h4>
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<h5 class="footnote-body-heading"><a id="FOOT36" href="#DOCF36">(36)</a></h5>
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<p>Even the
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lowest-level machine code can be thought to be interpreted by the CPU,
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and indeed is often implemented by compiling machine instructions to
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“micro-operations”.</p>
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</body>
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