Skip to content

fix(docs): clarify what printing a compiled program's output looks like for different targets #1833

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Merged
jselig-rigetti merged 2 commits into from
Sep 10, 2025
Merged

fix(docs): clarify what printing a compiled program's output looks like for different targets #1833

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
2 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
b511bb1
fix: clarify what printing a compiled program's output looks like for…
jselig-rigetti Sep 2, 2025
22e05cc
fix: grammar
jselig-rigetti Sep 2, 2025
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
14 changes: 9 additions & 5 deletions docs/source/compiler.rst
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -37,9 +37,9 @@ as in the following:

qc = get_qc("9q-square-qvm")

ep = qc.compile(Program(H(0), CNOT(0,1), CNOT(1,2)))
executable = qc.compile(Program(H(0), CNOT(0,1), CNOT(1,2)))

print(ep)
print(executable)

..
Cannot actually check the output because quilc is non-deterministic, but still need to
Expand All @@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ as in the following:

...

with output
with output (see note below)

.. code:: text

Expand All @@ -67,6 +67,8 @@ with output
RX(-pi/2) 2
RZ(pi/2) 2

Note that printing ``executable`` here — the result of a ``qc.compile`` call — only results in a readable native Quil program like the above if the Quantum Computer is a QVM. When compiling for live QPU targets, this printed output will be encrypted and opaque because of program translation. See :ref:`Compilation metadata <compilation_metadata>` for instructions on how to convert a program to native gates independent of program translation.

The compiler connection is also available directly via the property ``qc.compiler``. The
precise class of this object changes based on context (e.g., :py:class:`~pyquil.api.QPUCompiler`,
:py:class:`~pyquil.api.QVMCompiler`), but it always conforms to the interface laid out by :py:class:`~pyquil.api.AbstractCompiler`:
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -100,8 +102,8 @@ the previous example snippet is identical to the following:
np = qc.compiler.quil_to_native_quil(p, protoquil=True)
print(np)

ep = qc.compiler.native_quil_to_executable(np)
print(ep)
exe = qc.compiler.native_quil_to_executable(np)
print(exe)

.. testoutput:: quilc
:hide:
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -147,6 +149,8 @@ To instruct the compiler to produce Quil code that can be executed on a QPU, you
JupyterLab notebook's compiler) then specifying ``protoquil=False`` will override the server
and forcefully disable protoquil. Specifying ``protoquil=None`` defers to the server's choice.

.. _compilation_metadata:

Compilation metadata
====================

Expand Down
Loading