Introduction

The Python xasm module has routines for assembly, and has a command to assemble bytecode for several different versions of Python.

Here are some potential uses:

• Make small changes to existing Python bytecode when you don’t have source

• Craft custom and efficient bytecode

• Write an instruction-level optimizing compiler

• Experiment with and learn about Python bytecode

• Foil decompilers like uncompyle6 so that they can’t disassemble bytecode (at least for now)

This support the same kinds of bytecode that xdis supports. This is pretty much all released bytecode before Python 3.11. We tend to lag behind the latest Python releases.

The code requires Python 3.6 or later.

Assembly files

See how-to-use for more detail. Some general some principles:

• Preferred extension for Python assembly is .pyasm

• assembly is designed to work with the output of pydisasm -F xasm

• Assembly file labels are at the beginning of the line and end in a colon, e.g. END_IF:

• instruction offsets in the assembly file are ignored and don’t need to be entered

• in those instructions that refer to offsets, if the if the operand is an int, exactly that value will be used for the operand. Otherwise we will look for labels and match up with that

Installation

If you are using Python 3.11 or later, you can install from PyPI using the name xasm:

pip install xasm

A GNU makefile is also provided so make install (possibly as root or sudo) will do the steps above.

If you are using Python before 3.11, do not install using PyPI, but instead install using a file in the GitHub Releases section. Older Python used to use easy_install. But this is no longer supported in PyPi or newer Python versions. And vice versa, poetry nor pip, (the newer ways) are not supported on older Pythons.

If the Python version you are running xasm is between Python 3.6 through 3.11, use a tarball called xasm_36-x.y.z.tar.gz.

If the Python version you are running xasm is 3.11 or later, use a file called xasm-x.y.z.tar.gz.

Similarly, a tarball with or without the underscore xx, e.g., xasm_36-x.y.z.tar.gz. works only from Python 3.11 or greater.

Testing

make check

A GNU makefile has been added to smooth over setting running the right command, and running tests from fastest to slowest.

If you have remake installed, you can see the list of all tasks including tests via remake --tasks.

Example Assembly File

For this Python source code:

def five():
    return 5

print(five())

Here is an assembly for the above:

# Python bytecode 3.6 (3379)

# Method Name:       five
# Filename:          /tmp/five.pl
# Argument count:    0
# Kw-only arguments: 0
# Number of locals:  0
# Stack size:        1
# Flags:             0x00000043 (NOFREE | NEWLOCALS | OPTIMIZED)
# First Line:        1
# Constants:
#    0: None
#    1: 5
  2:
            LOAD_CONST           (5)
            RETURN_VALUE


# Method Name:       <module>
# Filename:          /tmp/five.pl
# Argument count:    0
# Kw-only arguments: 0
# Number of locals:  0
# Stack size:        2
# Flags:             0x00000040 (NOFREE)
# First Line:        1
# Constants:
#    0: <code object five at 0x0000>
#    1: 'five'
#    2: None
# Names:
#    0: five
#    1: print
  1:
            LOAD_CONST           0 (<code object five at 0x0000>)
            LOAD_CONST           ('five')
            MAKE_FUNCTION        0
            STORE_NAME           (five)

  3:
            LOAD_NAME            (print)
            LOAD_NAME            (five)
            CALL_FUNCTION        0
            CALL_FUNCTION        1
            POP_TOP
            LOAD_CONST           (None)
            RETURN_VALUE

The above can be created automatically from Python source code using the pydisasm command from xdis:

pydisasm --format xasm /tmp/five.pyc

In the example above though, I have shortened and simplified the result.

Usage

To create a python bytecode file from an assemble file, run:

pyc-xasm [OPTIONS] ASM_PATH

For usage help, type: pyc-xasm --help.

To convert a python bytecode from one bytecode to another, run:

pyc-convert [OPTIONS] INPUT_PYC [OUTPUT_PYC]

For usage help, type: pyc-convert --help.

See Also

• https://github.com/rocky/python-xdis : Cross Python version disassemble

• https://github.com/rocky/x-python : Cross Python version interpreter

• https://github.com/rocky/python-xasm/blob/master/HOW-TO-USE.rst : How to write an assembler file

• https://rocky.github.io/pycon2018-light.co/ : Pycolumbia 2018 Lightning talk showing how to use the assembler