self-interpreter

Noun

Meaning

That which interprets itself.

(programming) A metacircular interpreter where the host programming language is also the language being interpreted.

Examples

Clive Gifford introduced a measure quality of self-interpreter (the eigenratio), the limit of the ratio between computer time spent running a stack of N self-interpreters and time spent to run a stack of N−1 self-interpreters as N goes to infinity. Source: Internet

An important design dimension in the implementation of a self-interpreter is whether a feature of the interpreted language is implemented with the same feature in the interpreter's host language. Source: Internet

If no compiler exists for the language to be interpreted, creating a self-interpreter requires the implementation of the language in a host language (which may be another programming language or assembler ). Source: Internet

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