The DICT Development Group
3 definitions found
for compiler
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :
Compiler \Com*pil"er\ (k[o^]m*p[imac]l"[~e]r), n. [OE.
compiluor; cf. OF. compileor, fr. L. compilator.]
1. One who compiles; esp., one who makes books by
compilation.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Computers) a computer program that decodes instructions
written in a higher-level computer language to produce an
assembly-language program or an executable program in
machine language.
[WordNet 1.5 +PJC]
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) :
compiler
n 1: a person who compiles information (as for reference
purposes)
2: (computer science) a program that decodes instructions
written in a higher order language and produces an assembly
language program [syn: compiler, compiling program]
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018) :
compiler
A program that converts another program
from some source language (or programming language) to
machine language (object code). Some compilers output
assembly language which is then converted to machine
language by a separate assembler.
A compiler is distinguished from an assembler by the fact that
each input statement does not, in general, correspond to a
single machine instruction or fixed sequence of instructions.
A compiler may support such features as automatic allocation
of variables, arbitrary arithmetic expressions, control
structures such as FOR and WHILE loops, variable scope,
input/ouput operations, higher-order functions and
portability of source code.
AUTOCODER, written in 1952, was possibly the first primitive
compiler. Laning and Zierler's compiler, written in
1953-1954, was possibly the first true working algebraic
compiler.
See also byte-code compiler, native compiler, optimising
compiler.
(1994-11-07)
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