How is the internal architecture of the Python interpreter organized?

The internal architecture of the Python interpreter (e.g., CPython) consists of several key components:

• Lexer (Tokenizer): splits the source code into tokens.

• Parser: constructs an abstract syntax tree (AST) from the tokens.

• Compiler: transforms the AST into bytecode — an intermediate representation executed by the virtual machine.

• Virtual Machine (Python Virtual Machine, PVM): executes the bytecode by interpreting instructions.

• Memory Manager: manages object allocation and garbage collection.

• Global Interpreter Lock (GIL): ensures thread safety by allowing only one thread to execute Python bytecode at a time.

Thus, Python first compiles code into bytecode, then interprets it on the virtual machine. This provides portability and flexibility but imposes limitations on parallelism due to the GIL.