In addition to the byte-compilation, described in the previous chapter, Emacs can also optionally compile Lisp function definitions into a true compiled code, known as native code. This feature uses the libgccjit library, which is part of the GCC distribution, and requires that Emacs be built with support for using that library. It also requires to have GCC and Binutils (the assembler and linker) available on your system for you to be able to native-compile Lisp code.
To determine whether the current Emacs process can produce and load
natively-compiled Lisp code, call
native-comp-available-p (see Native-Compilation Functions).
Unlike byte-compiled code, natively-compiled Lisp code is executed directly by the machine’s hardware, and therefore runs at full speed that the host CPU can provide. The resulting speedup generally depends on what the Lisp code does, but is usually 2.5 to 5 times faster than the corresponding byte-compiled code.
Since native code is generally incompatible between different systems, the natively-compiled code is not transportable from one machine to another, it can only be used on the same machine where it was produced or on very similar ones (having the same CPU and run-time libraries). The transportability of natively-compiled code is the same as that of shared libraries (.so or .dll files).
Libraries of natively-compiled code include crucial dependencies on Emacs Lisp primitives (see What Is a Function?) and their calling conventions, and thus Emacs usually won’t load natively-compiled code produced by earlier or later Emacs versions; native compilation of the same Lisp code by a different Emacs version will usually produce a natively-compiled library under a unique file name that only that version of Emacs will be able to load. However, the use of unique file names allows to have in the same directory several versions of the same Lisp library natively-compiled by several different versions of Emacs.
A non-nil file-local variable binding of
no-byte-compile (see Byte Compilation) also disables the
native compilation of that file. In addition, a similar variable
no-native-compile disables just the native compilation of the
file. If both no-byte-compile and no-native-compile are
specified, the former takes precedence.
Sometimes there could be a need to prevent the native compilation
from writing its results, the *.eln files, into a subdirectory
of user-emacs-directory (see The Init File). You can do that
by either changing the value of native-comp-eln-load-path
(see Native-Compilation Variables) or by temporarily pointing the
HOME environment variable to a non-existing directory. Note
that the latter technique might still produce a small number of
*.eln files if Emacs needs to generate trampolines, which
are used if Lisp primitives are advised or redefined in your Lisp code
that is being natively compiled. See trampolines. Alternatively, you can specify that the *.eln
files are written to a non-default directory using the
startup-redirect-eln-cache function; see Native-Compilation Functions.