Compiled language

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A compiled language is a programming language whose implementations are typically compilers (translators which generate machine code from source code), and not interpreters (step-by-step executors of source code, where no translation takes place).

The term is somewhat vague; in principle any language can be implemented with a compiler or with an interpreter. A combination of both solutions is also increasingly common: a compiler can translate the source code into some intermediate form (often called bytecode), which is then passed to an interpreter which executes it.

A program translated by a compiler tends to be much faster than an interpreter executing the same program: even a 10:1 ratio is not uncommon. The mixed solution's efficiency is typically somewhere in between. The downsides of the "compiler" solution are the inherent complexity of a good implementation, and longer edit-run cycles.

A pure compiler implementation is the typical solution for low-level languages, because it comes out as more "natural", and because of efficiency concerns; however with some effort it is always possible to write compilers even for traditionally interpreted languages such as Lisp and Prolog.

[edit] Languages

Some languages that are commonly considered to be compiled:

• Ada
• ALGOL
  • Algol 60
  • Algol 68
  • SMALL
• BASIC
• C
  • C++
  • Objective-C
  • D
• CLEO
• COBOL
• Cobra
• Common Lisp
• Delphi
• Eiffel
  • Sather
  • Ubercode
• Fortran
• JOVIAL
• LabVIEW
• Lush
• ML
  • Standard ML
    • Alice
  • Ocaml
• Pascal
• Urq
• Visual Basic
• Visual Foxpro
• Visual Prolog

[edit] Tools

• ANTLR
• CodeWorker
• Lex
• Yacc
• GNU bison

[edit] See also

• compiler
• interpreter (computing)
• interpreted language

[edit] External links

• Compiled Languages at the Open Directory Project