A basic CEK machine for Plutus Core, implemented in OCaml.

To compile the machine, install OCaml (probably with OPAM) and the dune build tool and the zarith and ocplib-endian libraries (opam install dune zarith ocplib-endian) and then type make. That should leave an executable called cek in the top-level directory.

The cek program operates in two different ways. You can type

  cek <file>

to run a program once: the result and the execution time will be printed.

You can also type

  cek -t <n> <file>

to run the program n times: the execution times (in seconds) will be printed each time, and at the end the average time will be printed (but not the program result). This is a quick way to get benchmarking data.

The executable consumes Plutus Core programs in CBOR format (serialised with Names, not de Bruijn indices). You can get these by using

  plc convert --of cbor-named -i <input file> -o <output file>

on textual Plutus Core programs, such as the ones in plutus-benchmark/validation/data: see the README files in that directory for instructions on how to assemble the separate files into executable validators.

You can also use the nofib-exe command to generate suitable CBOR from the nofib examples: for example

  nofib-exe dumpCBORnamed prime P60

See plc convert --help and nofib-exe --help for more information.