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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, but there are also compilers that output optimized native machine code for a particular hardware/operating system combination.
Most Java-to-bytecode compilers, Jikes being a well known exception, do virtually no optimization, leaving this until run time to be done by the JRE.[citation needed]
The Java virtual machine (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.
External links[edit]
- Sun's OpenJDK javac page
- JSR 199 Java Compiler API Java Specification Request for invoking the Java compiler from a Java program
- Stephan Diehl, "A Formal Introduction to the Compilation of Java", Software - Practice and Experience, Vol. 28(3), pages 297-327, March 1998.
