Question

How would I generate a .pyc file from a Python AST such that I could import the file from Python?

I’ve used compile to create a code object, then written the co_code attribute to a file, but when I try to import the file from Python, I get an ImportError: Bad magic number in output.pyc.

Answer 1

The solution can be adapted from the py_compile module:

import marshal
import py_compile
import time
import ast

codeobject = compile(ast.parse('print "Hello World"'), '<string>', 'exec')

with open('output.pyc', 'wb') as fc:
    fc.write('\0\0\0\0')
    py_compile.wr_long(fc, long(time.time()))
    marshal.dump(codeobject, fc)
    fc.flush()
    fc.seek(0, 0)
    fc.write(py_compile.MAGIC)