Language translators convert programming source code into language that the computer processor understands. Programming source code has various structures and commands, but computer processors only understand machine language. Different types of translations must occur to turn programming source code into machine language, which is made up of bits of binary data. The three major types of language translators are compilers, assemblers, and interpreters.

Compilers

Most 3GL and higher-level programming languages use a compiler for language translation. A compiler is a special program that takes written source code and turns it into machine language. When a compiler executes, it analyzes all of the language statements in the source code and builds the machine language object code. After a program is compiled, it is then a form that the processor can execute one instruction at a time.

In some operating systems, an additional step called linking is required...