On 20 May 2006 at 8:51, Kris Schnee wrote:

>  Doesn't Python have a "compile" function that turns a complex statement 
>  into an executable code block? Something like that could be used for 
>  if-branches and the like. So could a kludge like turning if/then 
>  branches into GOTO statements; this could be done by some quick run-time 
>  parsing, eg:
>  
It's a builtin function:

compile(source, filename, mode[, flags[, dont_inherit]]) ->  code
      object

Compile the source string (a Python module, statement or expression)
into a code object that can be executed by the exec statement or 
eval().

The filename will be used for run-time error messages.
The mode must be 'exec' to compile a module, 'single' to compile a
single (interactive) statement, or 'eval' to compile an expression.

The flags argument, if present, controls which future statements 
influence the compilation of the code.

The dont_inherit argument, if non-zero, stops the compilation 
inheriting the effects of any future statements in effect in the code 
calling compile; if absent or zero these statements do influence the 
compilation, in addition to any features explicitly specified.

Lenard Lindstrom
<len-l@[...].net>