The period of time during which a program's
source code is being translated into executable code, as
opposed to
run time when the program is being executed. As
well as the work done by the
compiler, this may include
macro preprocessing as done by
cpp for example. The final
stage of program construction, performed by the
linker,
would generally also be classed as compile time but might be
distinguished as link time.
For example, static data in a
C program is allocated at
compile time whereas non-static data is allocated at
run time, probably on the
stack.