concept compiler in category fortran

This is an excerpt from Manning's book Modern Fortran: Building efficient parallel applications MEAP V13. Login to get full access to this book.

Compiled--You’ll write whole programs and pass them to the compiler before executing them. This is in contrast to interpreted programming languages like Python or JavaScript, which are parsed and executed line by line. Although this makes writing programs a bit more tedious, it allows the compiler to generate efficient executable code. In typical use cases, it’s not uncommon for Fortran programs to be one or two orders of magnitude faster than equivalent Python programs.

What is a compiler?

A compiler is a computer program that reads source code written in one programming language and translates it to equivalent code in another programming language. In our case, a Fortran compiler will read Fortran source code and generate appropriate assembly code and machine (binary) instructions.

Compiled--You’ll write whole programs and pass them to the compiler before executing them. This is in contrast to interpreted programming languages like Python or JavaScript, which are parsed and executed line by line. Although this makes writing programs a bit more tedious, it allows the compiler to generate efficient executable code. In typical use cases, it’s not uncommon for Fortran programs to be one or two orders of magnitude faster than equivalent Python programs.

What is a compiler?

A compiler is a computer program that reads source code written in one programming language and translates it to equivalent code in another programming language. In our case, a Fortran compiler will read Fortran source code and generate appropriate assembly code and machine (binary) instructions.

Figure  2.1. Compiling and linking steps that take the input source code and generate binary object and executable files. The source file, hello.f90, is passed to the compiler, which outputs a binary object file, hello.o. The object file is then passed to the linker, which outputs a binary executable file, hello. The linker is implicitly included in the compiler command (gfortran).