@@ -336,6 +336,50 @@ PyCode_New(int argcount, int nlocals, int stacksize, int flags,
    c_argcount, c_globals, and c_flags.
 */
 
+/* All about c_lnotab.
+
+c_lnotab is an array of unsigned bytes disguised as a Python string.  In -O
+mode, SET_LINENO opcodes aren't generated, and bytecode offsets are mapped
+to source code line #s (when needed for tracebacks) via c_lnotab instead.
+The array is conceptually a list of
+    (bytecode offset increment, line number increment)
+pairs.  The details are important and delicate, best illustrated by example:
+
+    byte code offset    source code line number
+        0		    1
+        6		    2
+       50		    7
+      350                 307
+      361                 308
+
+The first trick is that these numbers aren't stored, only the increments
+from one row to the next (this doesn't really work, but it's a start):
+
+    0, 1,  6, 1,  44, 5,  300, 300,  11, 1
+
+The second trick is that an unsigned byte can't hold negative values, or
+values larger than 255, so (a) there's a deep assumption that byte code
+offsets and their corresponding line #s both increase monotonically, and (b)
+if at least one column jumps by more than 255 from one row to the next, more
+than one pair is written to the table. In case #b, there's no way to know
+from looking at the table later how many were written.  That's the delicate
+part.  A user of c_lnotab desiring to find the source line number
+corresponding to a bytecode address A should do something like this
+
+    lineno = addr = 0
+    for addr_incr, line_incr in c_lnotab:
+        addr += addr_incr
+        if addr > A:
+            return lineno
+        lineno += line_incr
+
+In order for this to work, when the addr field increments by more than 255,
+the line # increment in each pair generated must be 0 until the remaining addr
+increment is < 256.  So, in the example above, com_set_lineno should not (as
+was actually done until 2.2) expand 300, 300 to 255, 255,  45, 45, but to
+255, 0,  45, 255,  0, 45.
+*/
+
 struct compiling {
 	PyObject *c_code;	/* string */
 	PyObject *c_consts;	/* list of objects */
@@ -692,17 +736,17 @@ com_set_lineno(struct compiling *c, int lineno)
 	else {
 		int incr_addr = c->c_nexti - c->c_last_addr;
 		int incr_line = lineno - c->c_last_line;
-		while (incr_addr > 0 || incr_line > 0) {
-			int trunc_addr = incr_addr;
-			int trunc_line = incr_line;
-			if (trunc_addr > 255)
-				trunc_addr = 255;
-			if (trunc_line > 255)
-				trunc_line = 255;
-			com_add_lnotab(c, trunc_addr, trunc_line);
-			incr_addr -= trunc_addr;
-			incr_line -= trunc_line;
+		while (incr_addr > 255) {
+			com_add_lnotab(c, 255, 0);
+			incr_addr -= 255;
+		}
+		while (incr_line > 255) {
+			com_add_lnotab(c, incr_addr, 255);
+			incr_line -=255;
+			incr_addr = 0;
 		}
+		if (incr_addr > 0 || incr_line > 0)
+			com_add_lnotab(c, incr_addr, incr_line);
 		c->c_last_addr = c->c_nexti;
 		c->c_last_line = lineno;
 	}