WHAT IS PYTHON INTERPRETER

The interpreter uses the source language (human language) and converts the program through each line of data. Python performs three other steps: lexing, parsing, and compiling. Together, these steps transform the programmer’s source code from lines of text into structured code objects containing instructions that the interpreter can understand. The interpreter’s job is to take these code objects and follow the instructions.

Python is often called an “interpreted” language like Ruby or Perl. The reason Python is called “interpreted” is that the compilation step does relatively less work (and the interpreter does relatively more) than in a compiled language.

The interpreter operates somewhat like the Unix shell: when called with standard input connected to a tty device, it reads and executes commands interactively; when called with a file name argument or with a file as standard input, it reads and executes a script from that file.

When commands are read from a tty, the interpreter is said to be in interactive mode. On Windows, when you want to run the Python interpreter in the shell, you can type the following:

$python

To get out of the interpreter in disassembling the Bytecode shell, you can type:

>>> quit()