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A while back was musing if it was possible to come up with something resembling the instruction set for a CPU for an abstract relational-engine. Is this basical

• rkrzr 2y ago
  No. The SQLite bytecode is much higher-level than the instruction set of a CPU.
• JonChesterfield 2y ago
  I think yes, essentially. Bytecode running on a software interpreter is the same thing as machine code running on a silicon interpreter. Probably slower, probably a different ISA, but very much the same idea. The OP suggests the sqlite bytecode also has arithmetic & control flow in it which you might want to exclude in other settings. There's a parallel with cisc vs risc instruction sets here, and to calls into a compiler runtime vs expanding instructions into larger numbers of more primitive ones in place. @rkrzr there's a circular definition in your "no" - if "CPU" means "an interpreter that executes instructions simpler than SQL" then this is indeed not an instruction set. If "CPU" means "interpreter of a given ISA" then it could be. The virtual machine in the sqlite codebase is the definition of the CPU for this instruction set. Unless you want to define CPU as exclusive of software implementations of interpreters.