Instructions

Instructions are declared as part of a powdr virtual machine. Their inputs and outputs are assignment registers as well as labels. Once defined, they can be called by any function in this machine.

Local instructions

A local instruction is the simplest type of instruction. It is called local because its behavior is defined using constraints over registers and columns of the machine it is defined in.

instr add X, Y -> Z {
    X + Y = Z
}

Instructions feature:

• a name
• some inputs
• some outputs
• a set of powdr-pil constraints to activate when the instruction is called

External instructions

An external instruction delegates calls to a function inside a submachine of this machine. When it is called, a call is made to the submachine function. An example of an external instruction is the following:

instr assert_zero X = my_submachine.assert_zero // where `assert_zero` is a function defined in `my_submachine`

Note that external instructions cannot currently link to functions of the same machine: they delegate computation to a submachine.