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How are variables stored in a computer?
RAM is the main memory in your computer and where variables would be stored for a running program (simplifying cache and register issues for the moment). RAM stores charges that are interpreted as either a 1 or 0, the details depending on the type of RAM.
How does a compiler and interpreter work?
Interpreter translates just one statement of the program at a time into machine code. Compiler scans the entire program and translates the whole of it into machine code at once. An interpreter takes very less time to analyze the source code.
Where are variable addresses stored?
The address of a local variable isn’t stored anywhere, unless you have a pointer pointing to the local variable. The local variables themselves are typically stored on the stack on most modern systems.
What is the difference between an interpreted and a compiled language?
The difference between an interpreted and a compiled language lies in the result of the process of interpreting or compiling. An interpreter produces a result from a program, while a compiler produces a program written in assembly language.
Which is better interpreted or compiled language?
Compiled languages are converted directly into machine code that the processor can execute. As a result, they tend to be faster and more efficient to execute than interpreted languages. They also give the developer more control over hardware aspects, like memory management and CPU usage.
How does the compiler decide where to place the six variables?
The compiler decides where to place the six variable within this stack frame, maybe at 8 bytes from the frame start and remembers that relative position. So, the instructions that the compiler produces for the function, are: advance the stack pointer by enough bytes for all the local variables of the function.
How is a local variable assigned to a stack?
At some point, for local variables, the compiler assigns either a stack location or a CPU register (it can be more complex in that the variable can actually have multiple locations, such as a stack location for some parts of the generated code and a CPU register for other sections).
How does an intepreter work in a simple model?
An intepreter will work about the way you guessed. In a simple model, it will maintain one dictionary with the variable names as dictionary keys and the variable values as dictionary value.
Why does the interpreter maintain multiple dictionary keys?
In a simple model, it will maintain one dictionary with the variable names as dictionary keys and the variable values as dictionary value. If the language knows the concept of variables that are visible only in specific contexts, the interpreter will maintain multiple dictionaries to reflect the different contexts.