Explaining why Python is an interpreted language

Python is a general-purpose interpreted, interactive, object-oriented high-level programming language. Python is processed by the interpreter at runtime. There is no need to compile the program before executing it. This is similar to PERL and PHP.

Steps

Step1 - Python source code is written by the coder. File extension: .py

Step 2 - The Python source code written by the encoder is compiled into Python bytecode. During this process, a file with a .pyc extension is created.

Step 3 - The virtual machine executes the .pyc extension file. Consider the virtual machine the runtime engine of Python. This is where Python programs run.

Therefore, the Python interpreter includes the process of program compilation. The program is compiled into bytecode and then executed by the virtual machine.

Let us look at the diagram below to better understand the execution process

Create .pyc file

To create .pyc files in Python, use PyCompile. The official documentation even suggests something like this -

py_compile module

The py_compile module provides a function that generates a bytecode file from a source file, and another function that is used when the module source file is called as a script. py_compile.compile() compiles the source file into bytecode and writes out the bytecode cache file.

Now, let’s look at an example -

import py_compile
py_compile.compile("demo.py")

Use py_compile.main()

import py_compile
py_compile.main(['File1.py','File2.py','File3.py'])

compileall module

The compileall module provides some utility functions to support the installation of Python libraries. These functions compile Python source files in a directory tree. This module can be used to create cached bytecode files when the library is installed, which makes them available even to users without write permissions to the library directory.

You can also compile from the command line using the compileall module -

python -m compileall <file_1>.py <file_n>.py

Compile every file in the above directory. compile_dir() recursively descends down the directory tree named by dir, compiling all .py files along the way. If all files are compiled successfully, return a true value, otherwise return a false value -

import compileall
compileall.compile_dir(direname)

Use compileall.compile_file(): compile_file() method to compile the file with the full path name. If the file is compiled successfully, a true value is returned, otherwise a false value is returned:

import compileall
compileall.compile_file('YourFileName.py')

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