[java] Is Java a Compiled or an Interpreted programming language ?

In the past I have used C++ as a programming language. I know that the code written in C++ goes through a compilation process until it becomes object code "machine code".

I would like to know how Java works in that respect. How is the user written Java code run by the computer?

Java is a byte-compiled language targeting a platform called the Java Virtual Machine which is stack-based and has some very fast implementations on many platforms.

Code written in Java is:

• First compiled to bytecode by a program called javac as shown in the left section of the image above;
• Then, as shown in the right section of the above image, another program called java starts the Java runtime environment and it may compile and/or interpret the bytecode by using the Java Interpreter/JIT Compiler.

When does java interpret the bytecode and when does it compile it? The application code is initially interpreted, but the JVM monitors which sequences of bytecode are frequently executed and translates them to machine code for direct execution on the hardware. For bytecode which is executed only a few times, this saves the compilation time and reduces the initial latency; for frequently executed bytecode, JIT compilation is used to run at high speed, after an initial phase of slow interpretation. Additionally, since a program spends most time executing a minority of its code, the reduced compilation time is significant. Finally, during the initial code interpretation, execution statistics can be collected before compilation, which helps to perform better optimization.

Java implementations typically use a two-step compilation process. Java source code is compiled down to bytecode by the Java compiler. The bytecode is executed by a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Modern JVMs use a technique called Just-in-Time (JIT) compilation to compile the bytecode to native instructions understood by hardware CPU on the fly at runtime.

Some implementations of JVM may choose to interpret the bytecode instead of JIT compiling it to machine code, and running it directly. While this is still considered an "interpreter," It's quite different from interpreters that read and execute the high level source code (i.e. in this case, Java source code is not interpreted directly, the bytecode, output of Java compiler, is.)

It is technically possible to compile Java down to native code ahead-of-time and run the resulting binary. It is also possible to interpret the Java code directly.

To summarize, depending on the execution environment, bytecode can be:

• compiled ahead of time and executed as native code (similar to most C++ compilers)
• compiled just-in-time and executed
• interpreted
• directly executed by a supported processor (bytecode is the native instruction set of some CPUs)

The terms "interpreted language" or "compiled language" don't make sense, because any programming language can be interpreted and/or compiled.

As for the existing implementations of Java, most involve a compilation step to bytecode, so they involve compilation. The runtime also can load bytecode dynamically, so some form of a bytecode interpreter is always needed. That interpreter may or may not in turn use compilation to native code internally.

These days partial just-in-time compilation is used for many languages which were once considered "interpreted", for example JavaScript.

Java is a compiled programming language, but rather than compile straight to executable machine code, it compiles to an intermediate binary form called JVM byte code. The byte code is then compiled and/or interpreted to run the program.

Quotation from: https://blogs.oracle.com/ask-arun/entry/run_your_java_applications_faster

Application developers can develop the application code on any of the various OS that are available in the market today. Java language is agnostic at this stage to the OS. The brilliant source code written by the Java Application developer now gets compiled to Java Byte code which in the Java terminology is referred to as Client Side compilation. This compilation to Java Byte code is what enables Java developers to ‘write once’. Java Byte code can run on any compatible OS and server, hence making the source code agnostic of OS/Server. Post Java Byte code creation, the interaction between the Java application and the underlying OS/Server is more intimate. The journey continues - The enterprise applications framework executes these Java Byte codes in a run time environment which is known as Java Virtual Machine (JVM) or Java Runtime Environment (JRE). The JVM has close ties to the underlying OS and Hardware because it leverages resources offered by the OS and the Server. Java Byte code is now compiled to a machine language executable code which is platform specific. This is referred to as Server side compilation.

So I would say Java is definitely a compiled language.

Kind of both. Firstly java compiled(some would prefer to say "translated") to bytecode, which then either compiled, or interpreted depending on mood of JIT.

Java does both compilation and interpretation,

In Java, programs are not compiled into executable files; they are compiled into bytecode (as discussed earlier), which the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) then interprets / executes at runtime. Java source code is compiled into bytecode when we use the javac compiler. The bytecode gets saved on the disk with the file extension .class.

When the program is to be run, the bytecode is converted the bytecode may be converted, using the just-in-time (JIT) compiler. The result is machine code which is then fed to the memory and is executed.

Javac is the Java Compiler which Compiles Java code into Bytecode. JVM is Java Virtual Machine which Runs/ Interprets/ translates Bytecode into Native Machine Code. In Java though it is considered as an interpreted language, It may use JIT (Just-in-Time) compilation when the bytecode is in the JVM. The JIT compiler reads the bytecodes in many sections (or in full, rarely) and compiles them dynamically into machine code so the program can run faster, and then cached and reused later without needing to be recompiled. So JIT compilation combines the speed of compiled code with the flexibility of interpretation.

An interpreted language is a type of programming language for which most of its implementations execute instructions directly and freely, without previously compiling a program into machine-language instructions. The interpreter executes the program directly, translating each statement into a sequence of one or more subroutines already compiled into machine code.

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

In modern programming language implementations like in Java, it is increasingly popular for a platform to provide both options.

Java is compiled to bytecode, which then goes into the Java VM, which interprets it.