The RebCode Virtual Machine

Experimental Development Project

Summary

RebCode is a new REBOL dialect that implements a virtual machine (VM) allowing developers to create high performance, lower-level functions in a manner that is consistent with the design principles of REBOL. Rebcode functions allow you to write special purpose, highly optimized functions that are capable of running on average 10-30 times faster than normal REBOL.

Important Notes

Rebcode is not for beginners; it requires a higher level of programming skill. You can crash your program through improper use of opcodes. Think of rebcode as "cross-platform assembly language".

You should not use rebcode until you know for certain what functions need to be optimized, and that those functions can't be fast enough as normal REBOL code.

Release Notes

Rebcode is not a normal part of REBOL binaries. It was released for experimental purposes.

8-Nov-2005: This is the first beta release of Rebcode.

If you used earlier versions, note that the opcode names have changed to reflect their datatypes. For example, add for integer has become add.i and addd for decimal is now add.d.

Links to Information

• RebCode Developer Guide
  Get an introduction to rebcode, its design, and how to use it.
• RebCode Opcode Reference
  Opcodes (operation codes) are the instructions that rebcode understands. The opcode reference provides details on the interface and behavior of each opcode, along with many examples of how to use them.
• RebCode Examples and Demos
  Learn from others, and be amazed at what you can do with rebcode.