How Python code is executed.
Software Engineer with a year of hands-on experience, specializing in backend development with Python, Django, JavaScript, and Node.js. Passionate about creating robust and seamless solutions.
When you run a Python script, several steps take place behind the scenes to execute your code. Here’s a brief overview of how it works:
Compilation to Bytecode
When we execute a Python script, the Python interpreter compiles the source code into bytecode.
Bytecode is a lower-level representation of the code, stored in a
.pycfile within the__pycache__directory.During this process, all syntax errors are checked.
Bytecode instructions are platform-independent and remain the same across different operating systems.
We can manually generate the bytecode of file Python file using this command.
python3 -m py_compilemain.pyWe can also execute the generated bytecode.`python3 __pycache__/main.cpython-310.pyc`
Execution by Python Virtual Machine (PVM)
Once the source code is compiled into bytecode, the Python Virtual Machine (PVM) interprets these bytecode instructions and performs the corresponding actions.
PVM is a part of Python Interpreter.
