• Congratulations to the Class of 2024 on your results!
    Let us know how you went here
    Got a question about your uni preferences? Ask us here

incremental compilation (1 Viewer)

parry

Member
Joined
Oct 25, 2003
Messages
45
Location
Lismore
Can someone please help me out by explaining what this is. Ive read from one book its where "The the interpreter automatically compiles a frequently used section of code, while the remainder of the code is still interpred", in the same book ive seen it say "Compiles each line of source code into an object file... so only the changes in the code are recompiled, not the entire program" and ive seen these two from a number of sources, so are they the same thing worded differently or can someone give me a better definition. Thanks
 

Winston

Active Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2002
Messages
6,128
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
2003
ok i'll give you my own explanation of the incremental compilation, basically it's the mixture of the Compilation and Interpreting method all in one, the actual source code becomes compiled to machine code, during compilation, say it has interpreted a section of a code, like it has already interpreted a specific module which is used repeteadedly throughout your application, then instead of recompiling that specific module, it just links to it, so it will be faster.
 

Glide

Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2003
Messages
103
Yeah like winston says, its a combination of both.. Which makes it better for debugging than compilation - but not as good as interpretation.. yet makes it faster than interpretation, yet not as good as compliation :)

Basically compiles sections of codes as it needs it, then re-uses it when it needs it...
 

Winston

Active Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2002
Messages
6,128
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
2003
Originally posted by Glide
Yeah like winston says, its a combination of both.. Which makes it better for debugging than compilation - but not as good as interpretation.. yet makes it faster than interpretation, yet not as good as compliation :)

Basically compiles sections of codes as it needs it, then re-uses it when it needs it...
IMO i think incremental is better than interpreting

the only thing good about intepreting is the ability to fix up the code and proceed on with compiling rather than having to restart the whole entire compiling process again, and that the source code is not compiled to object program, which saves space, but stupid because everytime it's to be executed again it must be re-compiled, but from my perspective of things, interpretation is that feature you find in like some of the compilers today, a good example will be VB 6.0 when your pressing play it's interpreting because there's no actual object program created permanently rather temporarily, and then once you stop it, the temp object program is destroyed.
 

Glide

Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2003
Messages
103
Well yeah, each serve there own purpose, one is not better in the other but rather can be used more effectively than another in the right situation :)
 

chris42

Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2003
Messages
649
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2004
Incremental compilation takes the benefits of both compilation and interpretation and tries to minimise the disadvantages of each.
 

parry

Member
Joined
Oct 25, 2003
Messages
45
Location
Lismore
so for detecting syntax errors, since they both go through line by line neither would be more effective? I saw this in a multi choice once and i picked incremental because i figured if they both find the errors but incremental only needs to recompile changes then it would be more effective, but i was wrong
 

Winston

Active Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2002
Messages
6,128
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
2003
Originally posted by parry
so for detecting syntax errors, since they both go through line by line neither would be more effective? I saw this in a multi choice once and i picked incremental because i figured if they both find the errors but incremental only needs to recompile changes then it would be more effective, but i was wrong
If i'm not wrong incremental would be slower in compilation process, compilation process itself is slow, and incremental compilation incorportes compilation, BUT in someway it changes some aspect of compilation which is the ability to halt compilation and fix syntax errors and continue from where it stopped.

Interpretation basically allows the halting of compilation too, and allows you to fix errors and resume and then the compiled EXE is ran immediately.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top