Utilizing a JIT compiler for code evaluation

Compiler writers make a great effort to produce optimal code. A simple, yet effective, optimization is to replace an arithmetic operation on two constants by the result value of this operation. To be able to perform the computation, an interpreter for constant expressions is embedded. And to arrive at the same result, the interpreter has to implement the same rules as the generated machine code! Of course, this can be the source of subtle errors.

A different approach would be to compile the constant expression to IR using the same code generations methods, and then have JIT compile and execute the IR. This idea can even be taken a step further. In mathematics, a function always produces the same result for the same input. For functions in computer languages, this is not true. A good example is the rand() function, which returns a random value for each call. A function in computer languages, which has the same characteristic as a function...