Java compiler
A Java compiler is a compiler for the programming language Java. The most common form of output from a Java compiler is Java class files containing platform-neutral Java bytecode,[1] but there are also compilers that output optimized native machine code for a particular hardware/operating system combination, most notably the now discontinued GNU Compiler for Java.[2]
Most Java-to-bytecode compilers do virtually no optimization, leaving this until run time to be done by the Java virtual machine (JVM).[citation needed]
The JVM loads the class files and either interprets the bytecode or just-in-time compiles it to machine code and then possibly optimizes it using dynamic compilation.
A standard on how to interact with Java compilers programmatically was specified in JSR 199.[3]
See also
- List of Java Compilers
- javac, the standard Java compiler in Oracle's JDK
References
- ↑ "The Java Virtual Machine Specification, Java SE 8 Edition, Section 1.2" (in en). https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se8/html/jvms-1.html#jvms-1.2.
- ↑ "GCJ - past, present, and future" (in en). https://lwn.net/Articles/130796/.
- ↑ "JSR 199: JavaTM Compiler API". https://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=199.
External links
- Sun's OpenJDK javac page
- Stephan Diehl, "A Formal Introduction to the Compilation of Java", Software - Practice and Experience, Vol. 28(3), pages 297-327, March 1998.
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