Facts : 1 Bytecode interpreters There is a spectrum of possibilities between interpreting and compiling, depending on the amount of analysis performed before the program is executed
Facts : 2 For example, Emacs Lisp is compiled to bytecode, which is a highly compressed and optimized representation of the Lisp source, but is not machine code (and therefore not tied to any particular hardware)
Facts : 3 This compiled code is then interpreted by a bytecode interpreter (itself written in C)
Facts : 4 The compiled code in this case is machine code for a virtual machine, which is implemented not in hardware, but in the bytecode interpreter
Facts : 5 The same approach is used with the Forth code used in Open Firmware systems: the source language is compiled into F code (a bytecode), which is then interpreted by a virtual machine
Facts : 6 Control tables - that do not necessarily ever need to pass through a compiling phase - dictate appropriate algorithmic control flow via customized interpreters in similar fashion to bytecode interpreters