An overview of the bytecode module's role and abilities.
§1. Prerequisites. The bytecode module is a part of the Inform compiler toolset. It is presented as a literate program or "web". Before diving in:
- (a) It helps to have some experience of reading webs: see inweb for more.
- (b) The module is written in C, in fact ANSI C99, but this is disguised by the fact that it uses some extension syntaxes provided by the inweb literate programming tool, making it a dialect of C called InC. See inweb for full details, but essentially: it's C without predeclarations or header files, and where functions have names like Tags::add_by_name rather than just add_by_name.
- (c) This module uses other modules drawn from the compiler, and also uses a module of utility functions called foundation. For more, see A Brief Guide to Foundation (in foundation).
§2. About bytecode. This module defines the bytecode representation of the Inter intermediate language used by the back end of the Inform compiler.