How Source Code Is Transformed into Machine Instructions
A compiler transforms source code into executable machine instructions by first tokenizing the text into keywords, identifiers and literals, then parsing these tokens into an abstract syntax tree, generating and optimizing intermediate code, and finally assembling and linking the output for the target architecture or LLVM IR.
Programs are just text strings that must be transformed into binary machine instructions that a CPU can execute.
The compiler first scans the source code, extracting meaningful character groups (tokens) such as keywords, identifiers, and literals.
It then parses the token stream according to the language grammar, building an abstract syntax tree (AST) that represents the program structure.
Next, the compiler walks the AST to generate intermediate or target instructions, applying optimizations (e.g., dead‑code elimination).
Finally, the generated code is assembled into object files and linked into an executable; back‑ends can target different architectures, or emit LLVM IR for further processing.
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