Pinocchio opcode format

[HarryR]

Have you considered implementing the Pinocchio opcode format?

For example, it outputs a set of opcodes like the following: https://github.com/akosba/jsnark/blob/master/JsnarkCircuitBuilder/auction_10.arith

From these opcodes both the constraints for the circuit can be generated, and the circuit can also be simulated to create a proof (e.g. you provide the inputs, then the states of all intermediate wires etc. are determined by evaluating the opcodes & wires).

It seems like this is becoming a widely implemented common intermediate format for zkSNARKS and other general purpose verifiable computation languages which have the witness / prove steps. The advantage of using a common opcode format like this is that your zkSNARK implementation could run gadgets compiled by xjsnark and PInocchio, and programs compiled in your language could be easily run on other zkSNARK / zk-proof / PCP platforms.

This format is supported by:

• xjsnark - https://github.com/akosba/xjsnark
• jsnark - https://github.com/akosba/jsnark
• Pinocchio - https://github.com/corda/msr-vc/tree/master/pinocchio
• Pinocchio 2 Bulletproof converter - https://github.com/bbuenz/BulletProofLib/blob/master/pinocchioconversion/arithparser3.py

e.g. if I implement a loader for pinocchio, xjsnark & jsnark in my ethsnarks project, it'd be awesome to be able to support another programming language without having to load the JavaScript runtime and your own zkSNARK framework.